1. Five cases of scoliosis with paraplegia are reported, and thirty-six comparable cases from the literature are reviewed. These forty-one cases have been studied with the object of determining the etiology of scoliosis, the reason why cord compression sometimes develops, and the results of conservative and operative treatment of such compression of the cord. 2. The cause of paraplegia is nearly always compression of the spinal cord by the dura, which, in severe scoliosis, is under longitudinal tension because of its firm attachment to the foramen magnum above and the sacrum below. Such tension, resisting displacement of the spinal cord from the straight line, may be shown to cause incomplete spinal block even when there is no paralysis. 3. When paralysis occurs it usually develops during the years of most rapid growth, the tight dura being unable to accommodate itself to the rate of growth of the spinal column; cord compression is probably increased by narrowing of the dural sac by rotational displacement. 4. The most striking results have been secured by laminectomy with section of the dura and sometimes division of dentate ligaments and tight nerve roots. After such division there is evidence of release of compression: the cord herniates through the dural slit; and spinal pulsation returns. 5. It is important to control bleeding in order to avoid post-operative compression by blood clot; and to prevent leakage of cerebro-spinal fluid through the arachnoid. 6. It is unwise to perform spinal fusion at the same time as decompression because it increases the danger of haematoma formation. Moreover the improvement gained by decompression is maintained even if no fusion of the spine is performed. 7. Conservative treatment of scoliosis with paraplegia should not be continued for long periods unless there is evidence of early and progressive improvement because prolonged compression causes irreversible changes in the cord. 8. In three cases, paraplegia was not due to dural compression: one turned out later to be a case of syringomyelia; one, reported by Heyman, was due to the pressure of a bone spur; and one, reported in this series, was due to a congenital tight band of developmental origin which might have caused the scoliosis as well as the paralysis, and in which, after resection of the band, recovery from the paralysis was complete

Early decompression in Pott's paraplegia gives encouraging results. It produces speedy recovery from paraplegia and ensures rapid healing of the lesion. Lateral extrapleural decompression without fusion for lesions of thoracic vertebrae is safe and satisfactory. It gives adequate exposure of the anterior and posterior parts of the vertebral bodies and of the theca, without endangering the stability of the spine. Age, sex and site of the lesion have no influence on the prognosis, whereas paraplegia of longer duration, paraplegia in flexion, and paraplegia presenting as a spinal cord tumour carry a bad prognosis. In early lesions there is reconstitution of vertebral bodies whereas in advanced lesions there is consolidation or bony fusion

1. A comparison of the results of sixty patients with Pott's paraplegia, half operated upon and half treated conservatively, showed that better results were achieved in a much shorter time in those treated surgically. 2. Extra-pleural antero-lateral decompression is the operation of choice in cases of Pott's paraplegia. 3. The operation should be done as soon as the general condition of the patient allows, and should not be left until the disease is quiescent. 4. The greatest improvement is found in those patients who are still ambulant. 5. Although the gain in patients with complete paraplegia may be small, relief from painful flexor spasms and the healing of bed-sores often justify surgical treatment. 6. Fusion of the vertebral bodies can be carried out at the same sitting using healthy ribs and sometimes cancellous bone, with satisfactory results

Aims. To address the natural history of severe post-tuberculous (TB) kyphosis, with focus upon the long-term neurological outcome, occurrence of restrictive lung disease, and the effect on life expectancy. . Patients and Methods. This is a retrospective clinical review of prospectively collected imaging data based at a single institute. A total of 24 patients of Southern Chinese origin who presented with spinal TB with a mean of 113° of kyphosis (65° to 159°) who fulfilled inclusion criteria were reviewed. Plain radiographs were used to assess the degree of spinal deformity. Myelography, CT and MRI were used when available to assess the integrity of the spinal cord and canal. Patient demographics, age of onset of spinal TB and interventions, types of surgical procedure, intra- and post-operative complications, and neurological status were assessed. . Results. All except one of the 24 patients were treated with anti-TB chemotherapy when they were first diagnosed with spinal TB. They subsequently received surgery either for neurological deterioration, or deformity correction in later life. The mean follow-up was 34 years (11 to 59) since these surgical interventions. Some 16 patients (66.7%) suffered from late neurological deterioration at a mean of 26 years (8 to 49) after the initial drug treatment. The causes of neurological deterioration were healed disease in nine patients (56.2%), re-activation in six patients (37.5%) and adjacent level spinal stenosis in one patient (6.3%). The result of surgery was worse in healed disease. Eight patients without neurological deterioration received surgery to correct the kyphosis. The mean correction ranged from 97° to 72°. Three patients who were clinically quiescent with no neurological deterioration were found to have active TB of the spine. Solid fusion was achieved in all cases and no patient suffered from neurological deterioration after 42 years of follow-up. On final follow-up, six patients were noted to have deceased (age range: 47 years to 75 years). Conclusion. Our study presents one of the longest assessments of spinal TB with severe kyphosis. Severe post-TB kyphosis may lead to significant health problems many years following the initial drug treatment. Early surgical correction of the kyphosis, solid fusion and regular surveillance may avoid late complications. Paraplegia, restrictive lung disease and early onset kyphosis might relate to early death. Clinically quiescent disease does not mean cure. . Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2017;99-B:1381–8

Twenty-two cases of paraplegia complicating injury of the cervical column have been reviewed. The vertebral injury may be due to flexion or hyperextension violence. Flexion injury—There are three types of flexion injury: 1) dislocation; 2) compression fracture of a vertebral body; 3) acute retropulsion of an intervertebral disc. Evidence is presented in support of the view that disc protrusion is the cause of the cord lesion when there is no radiographic evidence of bone injury, and in some cases at least when there is a compression fracture. Treatment is discussed and the indications for caliper traction and laminectomy are presented. Hyperextension injurv—There are two types of hyperextension injury: 1) dislocation; 2) injury to arthritic spines. Hyperextension injury of an arthritic spine is the usual cause of paraplegia in patients over fifty years of age. The mechanism of hyperextension injury is described. The possible causes of spinal cord injury, and its treatment, are discussed

We report the management of two children and 11 adults with paraplegia secondary to vertebral hydatidosis. Destruction of pedicles, posterior vertebral elements and discs as well as the vertebral bodies was common and all six patients with thoracic disease had involvement of adjacent ribs. The 13 patients had a total of 42 major surgical procedures; two patients died from postoperative complications and four from complications of the disease and paraplegia. All eight patients initially treated by laminectomy or anterior decompression alone relapsed within two years and seven required further surgery. Circumferential decompression and grafting gave the best results, six of nine patients being in remission an average of three years and six months later. The prognosis for such patients is poor; remission is the aim, rather than cure. Anthelminthic drugs may improve the prognosis, but radical surgery is likely to remain the keystone of treatment in the foreseeable future

1. In 120 of 740 European patients found to be suffering from spinal tuberculosis the disease was complicated by paraplegia. These 120 patients have been studied. 2. The patients could be divided into two groups: those receiving chemotherapy and those not receiving specific drugs. Chemotherapy improves the patient's general condition and makes operation safer, but does not have any significant effect in preventing paraplegia or in promoting recovery from it. 3. Only twenty-four of the fifty patients treated by closed method made full recovery. 4. The recovery rate after decompression was only 60 per cent. The reasons for this relatively low rate are discussed and the advantages of the postero-lateral approach to the cord, combined with focal operation on the lesion, are stressed. 5. Experience has shown that a policy of early and adequate focal operation can eliminate the risk of this serious complication of spinal tuberculosis. 6. The behaviour of spinal tuberculosis in the European is contrasted with that in the African and Asian

1. The results of treatment of 115 patients with Pott's paraplegia during a six and a half year period are reviewed. 2. The indications for operative intervention—in particular antero-lateral decompression— according to the duration, grade and type of paraplegia, are discussed. 3. No attempt has been made to justify the treatment of individual patients in the series, some of whom would undoubtedly have benefited from earlier operation; but lessons are pointed and conclusions drawn from the results, good and bad

1. Ectopic ossification is commonest in, but not confined to, traumatic paraplegia. It occurs also in many other neurological disorders which have in common a gross disturbance of spinal cord reflex activity. It is a true ossification and must be distinguished from calcification. 2. The neurological lesion may lie anywhere from the cerebral cortex to the mixed peripheral nerve. It may involve motor tracts, sensory tracts or a mixture of both. 3. The ossification is localised and self-limiting. It occurs mainly in the lower limbs and is restricted to certain muscles or muscle groups, the nerve supply of which is always below the level of the central neurological lesion. 4. The blood chemistry is usually normal. 5. A true arthropathy is rare except as part of a secondary suppurative arthritis. 6. The resemblance to myositis ossificans progressiva or to ossifying haematoma is only superficial, although the pathological process at cellular level may be the same. 7. The period of onset after paraplegia is variable. The earliest recorded example is in one of our own cases in which ossification occurred nineteen days after injury. Other patients have developed ossification after several years. 8. The condition is commonest in acquired nervous disease rather than in congenital disorders, and so far as we know it has not been described in the myopathies. The presence of muscular spasticity or flaccidity is relevant only in that it indicates a disturbance of reflex activity. 9. Soft-tissue ulceration appears to be frequently associated with ectopic ossification. The type of new bone formation associated with large chronic ulcers is not to be compared with the new bone formation in the muscles of a paraplegic patient in otherwise good general condition. 10. The occurrence of urinary tract infections with calculi and generalised sepsis is not specifically related to the onset of new bone formation. 11. Localised soft-tissue oedema often precedes the formation of new bone. Its appearance is undoubtedly important, but the mechanism of its origin is obscure. 12. It is not yet known what initiates ectopic ossification, what limits its spread and what finally causes it to stop. 13. We have described 100 examples of ectopic ossification in 603 paraplegic patients. 14. Surgery has been required in only eight patients. The only indication for surgery is bony ankylosis of the hip in an unacceptable position

A case of paraplegia presumed on clinical grounds to be due to bilharziasis is reported. The patient was treated with antibilharzial drugs and steroids. She has been followed up for eight years and has recovered almost completely. The literature is reviewed, and the incidence and types of spinal lesion, the possible routes of infection and the diagnosis and treatment are discussed

Aspergillus infection of the spine is rare; for it to lead to paraplegia is still more rare. When this does occur it is usually treated by decompression and antifungal agents, but the results have usually been poor. We report two cases of successful conservative treatment of Aspergillus paraplegia in patients with chronic granulomatous disease

1. A clinical study has been made of heterotopic ossification in 273 patients with paraplegia of traumatic and non-traumatic origin treated at the Liverpool Paraplegic Centre over a period of twelve and a half years. 2. The literature is reviewed and theories of etiology are discussed. 3. Etiological factors have been studied. Prominent among these is inadequacy of early treatment leading to urinary infection and to the formation of pressure sores. 4. It is concluded that there is no effective treatment for established heterotopic ossification. 5. The importance of prophylactic treatment is stressed. Special emphasis is placed on adequate primary treatment, correction of hypoproteinaemia and early mobilisation

1. Cases of hydatid disease causing paraplegia since 1860 in Great Britain have been briefly reviewed and three recent cases have been added. 2. The types have been classified, the clinical pictures outlined and the treatment discussed

1. The clinical and post-mortem findings are described of a patient who sustained a hyperextension injury of the neck with paraplegia. 2. There was no radiological evidence of fracture: osteoarthritis of the spine was present. 3. Evidence is presented that the cord was damaged from behind by the lamina of the vertebra below a tear in the anterior longitudinal ligament

1. The literature on paraplegia complicating hyperextension injuries of the cervical spine is reviewed, and the lack of any definite explanation of the mode of interference with cord function is noted. 2. A case is described in which a detailed dissection of the post-mortem specimen was carried out. On the basis of the findings it is suggested that one cause of the suppression of cord function in such injuries is thrombosis of the spinal arteries and liquefaction-necrosis of the cord

Paraplegia occurred in an adolescent girl with osteogenesis imperfecta after chiropractic manipulation. The child had been able to walk freely out of doors. Complete motor paralysis with sensory sparing resulted due to anterior compression of the cord by spondyloptotic cervical vertebrae. Reconstructed computerised tomography was very helpful in demonstrating the abnormality. Anterior and then posterior decompression relieved the tethered spinal cord and were supplemented with bone grafting. Early diagnosis and surgical treatment will prevent similar neurological accidents

Twenty-two patients with late onset Pott's paraplegia presenting at a mean of 18 years after initial symptoms were reviewed an average of seven years after treatment by anterior decompression and fusion. Fourteen patients had active disease, and in 12 of these, activity at the internal kyphus was the direct cause of the paraplegia. In the other two, a soft healing bony ridge was the cause. The eight patients with healed disease had hard bony ridges compressing the cord. The response to anterior decompression was faster, better and safer in patients with active disease: nine recovered completely and three significantly. In patients with healed disease, the anterior decompression was technically more difficult and the recovery less satisfactory. Significant complications included two cases with neurological deterioration, two with cerebrospinal fluid fistulae and four with neurapraxia of the cord

1) A case is reported of paraplegia with normal radiographic appearances in which cervical cord damage was shown at autopsy to have been due to hyperextension injury. 2) The mechanism of such injuries is discussed, together with the differential diagnosis from acute prolapse of an intervertebral disc. 3) The grave dangers of using the fully extended position of the cervical spine in the management of these cases is noted

1. Paraplegia from fracture-dislocation at the thoraco-lumbar junction is a mixed cord and root injury. The root damage can be distinguished from cord damage by neurological examination and by comparison of the neurological level with the fracture level. 2. Even though the cord injury is complete, as it usually is, the roots often escape or recover. 3. Fracture-dislocations can be divided into stable and unstable types. Because of the possibility of root recovery care must be taken to prevent further damage to the roots by manipulation of the spine or during treatment. For this reason unstable fracture-dislocations are fixed internally by plates. 4. Internal fixation also assists in the nursing of the patient. The nursing technique and the care of the bladder are described

1. The results of treatment have been compared in two unselected series of patients with unstable fractures of the thoraco-lumbar spine accompanied by paraplegia. 2. One group had been treated by conservative or " postural" methods while the others had been subjected to open reduction and internal fixation with double plates. 3. No difference in the amount of neurological recovery could be detected between the two groups but while a number of conservatively treated patients had significant residual spinal deformity and subsequently developed serious pain, this did not occur in any of the patients treated by plating. 4. It is concluded that open reduction and internal fixation are indicated in displaced fractures in the interests of long-term spinal function

Aims. The outcome following the development of neurological complications after corrective surgery for scoliosis varies from full recovery to a permanent deficit. This study aimed to assess the prognosis and recovery of major neurological deficits in these patients, and to determine the risk factors for non-recovery, at a minimum follow-up of two years. Methods. A major neurological deficit was identified in 65 of 8,870 patients who underwent corrective surgery for scoliosis, including eight with complete paraplegia and 57 with incomplete paraplegia. There were 23 male and 42 female patients. Their mean age was 25.0 years (SD 16.3). The aetiology of the scoliosis was idiopathic (n = 6), congenital (n = 23), neuromuscular (n = 11), neurofibromatosis type 1 (n = 6), and others (n = 19). Neurological function was determined by the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) impairment scale at a mean follow-up of 45.4 months (SD 17.2). the patients were divided into those with recovery and those with no recovery according to the ASIA scale during follow-up. Results. The incidence of major deficit was 0.73%. At six-month follow-up, 39 patients (60%) had complete recovery and ten (15.4%) had incomplete recovery; these percentages improved to 70.8% (46) and 16.9% (11) at follow-up of two years, respectively. Eight patients showed no recovery at the final follow-up. The cause of injury was mechanical in 39 patients and ischaemic in five. For 11 patients with misplaced implants and haematoma formation, nine had complete recovery. Fisher’s exact test showed a significant difference in the aetiology of the scoliosis (p = 0.007) and preoperative deficit (p = 0.016) between the recovery and non-recovery groups. A preoperative deficit was found to be significantly associated with non-recovery (odds ratio 8.5 (95% confidence interval 1.676 to 43.109); p = 0.010) in a multivariate regression model. Conclusion. For patients with scoliosis who develop a major neurological deficit after corrective surgery, recovery (complete and incomplete) can be expected in 87.7%. The first three to six months is the time window for recovery. In patients with misplaced implants and haematoma formation, the prognosis is satisfactory with appropriate early intervention. Patients with a preoperative neurological deficit are at a significant risk of having a permanent deficit. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2022;104-B(1):103–111

Vertebral haemangiomas are usually asymptomatic and discovered fortuitously during imaging. A small proportion may develop variable degrees of pain and neurological deficit. We prospectively studied six patients who underwent eight surgical procedures on 11 vertebral bodies. There were 11 balloon kyphoplasties, six lumbar and five thoracic. The mean follow-up was 22.3 months (12 to 36). The indications for operation were pain in four patients, severe back pain with Frankel grade C paraplegia from cord compression caused by soft-tissue extension from a thoracic vertebral haemangioma in one patient, and acute bleeding causing Frankel grade B paraplegia from an asymptomatic vascular haemangioma in one patient. In four patients the exhibited aggressive vascular features, and two showed lipomatous, non-aggressive, characteristics. One patient who underwent a unilateral balloon kyphoplasty developed a recurrence of symptoms from the non-treated side of the vertebral body which was managed by a further similar procedure. Balloon kyphoplasty was carried out successfully and safely in all patients; four became asymptomatic and two showed considerable improvement. Neurological recovery occurred in all cases but bleeding was greater than normal. To avoid recurrence, complete obliteration of the lesion with bone cement is indicated. For acute bleeding balloon kyphoplasty should be combined with emergency decompressive laminectomy. For intraspinal extension with serious neurological deficit, a combination of balloon kyphoplasty with intralesional alcohol injection is effective

The dismal outcome of tuberculosis of the spine in the pre-antibiotic era has improved significantly because of the use of potent antitubercular drugs, modern diagnostic aids and advances in surgical management. MRI allows the diagnosis of a tuberculous lesion, with a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 88%, well before deformity develops. Neurological deficit and deformity are the worst complications of spinal tuberculosis. Patients treated conservatively show an increase in deformity of about 15°. In children, a kyphosis continues to increase with growth even after the lesion has healed. Tuberculosis of the spine is a medical disease which is not primarily treated surgically, but operation is required to prevent and treat the complications. Panvertebral lesions, therapeutically refractory disease, severe kyphosis, a developing neurological deficit, lack of improvement or deterioration are indications for surgery. Patients who present with a kyphosis of 60° or more, or one which is likely to progress, require anterior decompression, posterior shortening, posterior instrumented stabilisation and anterior and posterior bone grafting in the active stage of the disease. Late-onset paraplegia is best prevented rather than treated. The awareness and suspicion of an atypical presentation of spinal tuberculosis should be high in order to obtain a good outcome. Therapeutically refractory cases of tuberculosis of the spine are increasing in association with the presence of HIV and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis

1. One hundred and sixty cases of incomplete or complete paraplegia due to extradural malignant tumour have been reviewed. Between 1959 and 1969 laminectomy for decompression of the cord was performed in 154 of these cases as an urgent measure and the results in 129 cases with full records have been assessed. 2. Immediate laminectomy, a palliative procedure, gave worthwhile improvement in 35 percent of cases of incomplete paraplegia; such patients could walk and had satisfactory control of bladder function at least six months after operation. 3. There were no satisfactory results when the paraplegia was complete. 4. The relief of pain following decompression may be gratifying, even if the patient does not improve sufficiently to fulfil the criteria of a satisfactory result. 5. The results emphasise the importance of early diagnosis, myelography and decompression if a patient with incomplete paralysis is to be offered any chance of relief

1. Nine hundred and fourteen cases of tuberculosis of the spine are analysed and the late results ascertained three or more years after discharge from hospital. 2. The relative frequency with which the various segments of the spine are involved has been found. Cervical disease was present in 3·5 per cent of cases, thoracic in 43·l per cent, lumbar in 32·9 per cent, thoraco-lumbar in 16· 7 per cent and lumbo-sacral in 3·8 per cent. 3. The mortality rate was 16·7 per cent. In patients with multiple lesions 25·5 per cent died, compared with 12·3 per cent in the group without complications. When chronic secondarily infected abscesses and sinuses were present the mortality rate was 19·1 per cent, and of patients with paraplegia 24·8 per cent died. 4. In the late results the working capacity of 390 patients was ascertained. It was full in 86 per cent, partial in 5·8 per cent and nil in 8·2 per cent. 5. An attempt has been made to determine the site of the primary bone focus from the radiograph. Early "epiphysial" changes were present in 33 per cent ; the central focus beginning in the spongy tissue of a vertebral body was present in 11·6 per cent; subperiosteal lesions were present in 2·1 per cent; and infection of the neural arch was present in only 0·5 per cent. In 52·8 per cent, however, widespread destruction had taken place when the patient first came under observation. 6. The ill effect of complications upon the prognosis is stressed—especially in the cases of multiple foci of active tuberculosis, secondarily infected abscesses and sinuses, and paraplegia. Paraplegia occurred in 31·2 per cent of the cases of thoracic disease. 7. An attempt has been made to determine the frequency with which tuberculosis of the spine heals by spontaneous bony fusion of the affected vertebral bodies. It was found in 27·3 per cent of the cases in the present series. 8. Reasons for further treatment after the initial discharge of the patient are examined

Segmental vessel ligation during anterior spinal surgery has been associated with paraplegia. However, the incidence and risk factors for this devastating complication are debated. We reviewed 346 consecutive paediatric and adolescent patients ranging in age from three to 18 years who underwent surgery for anterior spinal deformity through a thoracic or thoracoabdominal approach, during which 2651 segmental vessels were ligated. There were 173 patients with idiopathic scoliosis, 80 with congenital scoliosis or kyphosis, 43 with neuromuscular and 31 with syndromic scoliosis, 12 with a scoliosis associated with intraspinal abnormalities, and seven with a kyphosis. There was only one neurological complication, which occurred in a patient with a 127° congenital thoracic scoliosis due to a unilateral unsegmented bar with contralateral hemivertebrae at the same level associated with a thoracic diastematomyelia and tethered cord. This patient was operated upon early in the series, when intra-operative spinal cord monitoring was not available. Intra-operative spinal cord monitoring with the use of somatosensory evoked potentials alone or with motor evoked potentials was performed in 331 patients. This showed no evidence of signal change after ligation of the segmental vessels. In our experience, unilateral segmental vessel ligation carries no risk of neurological damage to the spinal cord unless performed in patients with complex congenital spinal deformities occurring primarily in the thoracic spine and associated with intraspinal anomalies at the same level, where the vascular supply to the cord may be abnormal

1. The true deformity of kyphoscoliosis has received little attention. Twenty-one deformities of congenital origin, ten idiopathic, and two secondary to neurofibromatosis, are discussed. The diagnosis is established and usually first suspected by radiography. 2. The deformity was severe and progressive except in three cases; paraplegia occurred in five congenital cases. 3. Early correction and fusion are advocated in the hope of preventing paraplegia and because correction of the old-established deformity is difficult or impossible

1. A case is reported of a benign osteoblastoma of the body of the second thoracic vertebra causing paraplegia in a woman aged twenty-six. 2. The tumour was resected, apparently entirely, through a costo-transversectomy approach, and the paraplegia resolved almost completely. 3. Five and a half years later symptoms recurred, due to a recurrence in the form of a large, partly calcified tumour in the left upper thorax which was resected in toto via a transpleural approach. 4. The considerable histological differences between the original tumour and the recurrence are discussed

1. A high incidence of paraplegia following operations for the correction of severe scoliosis in adults led to an investigation of the normal blood supply of the human spinal cord. 2. This entailed three methods of study: micro-dissection of the vessels of the spinal cord in thirty-five cadavers; radiological measurements of the spinal canal in fifty healthy subjects; and a study of the macerated spinal column in six adult cadavers. 3. The blood supply of the spinal cord is shown to be least rich, and the spinal canal narrowest, from the T.4 to approximately the T.9 vertebral level. This is named the critical vascular zone of the spinal cord, the zone in which interference with the circulation is most likely to result in paraplegia

1. Six cases of development of heterotopic bone around joints in association with paralysis from intracranial lesions are presented. It is suggested that such bone may occur more commonly than is realised. 2. The features of these cases are very similar to those seen in association with paraplegia. 3. Extensive new bone is usually associated with fixed contractures. 4. Operation is hazardous in paraplegia but should not necessarily be so in other paralytic conditions. 5. In the presence of returning motor function excision of the bone, allowing correction of the deformity together with some movement, is a worthwhile procedure. In the hip, osteotomy alone usually requires plaster fixation with the attendant risks of venous thrombosis. Previous excision of the bone allows internal fixation of the osteotomy with early mobilisation

Forty patients with tuberculosis of the lower cervical spine (second to seventh cervical vertebrae) have been reviewed. Pain and stiffness were important and dominant symptoms. Two types of disease were recognised. In children under 10 years old involvement was extensive and diffuse with the formation of large abscesses. In patients over 10 the disease was localised and produced less pus, but was associated with a much higher incidence of Pott's paraplegia. The overall incidence of cord compression was 42.5 per cent (17 out of 40); 13 of the 16 patients with the "adult" type of disease had this complication. The commonest method of treatment was with antituberculous drugs, anterior excision of diseased bone and grafting. This regime rapidly relieved pain, compressive respiratory symptoms due to abscesses and Pott's paraplegia. It also corrected kyphotic deformities from an average of 25.5 degrees to 5.4 degrees

It is clear that in lateral rhachotomy we have a procedure which is appropriate for approach to the vertebral bodies in a variety of pathological processes including, besides the relief of Pott's paraplegia, the treatment of non-paraplegic tuberculosis, the exploration of spinal tumours, the relief of certain types of traumatic paraplegia and the drainage of suppurative osteitis of the vertebral bodies. For tuberculous disease we find in lateral rhachotomy a technical procedure which provides a meeting point for the solution of several ideas. These are the evacuation of tuberculous abscesses as enunciated by Pott and developed by Ménard, the revascularisation of avascular areas, the removal of necrotic material and the direct removal of the features causing spinal cord compression. It is to the latter only that I think I have made a small contribution. For all other purposes, between lateral rhachotomy and the classical costo-transversectomy, the differences if any are extremely small. The fact remains that the direct surgical approach to lesions of the vertebral bodies has a wide scope of usefulness

Two hundred and eighty-three patients with tuberculosis of the thoracic and/or lumbar spine have been followed for 10 years from the start of treatment. All patients received PAS plus isoniazid daily for 18 months, either with streptomycin for the first three months (SPH) or no streptomycin (PH), by random allocation. There was also a second random allocation for all patients: in Masan to inpatient rest in bed (IP) for six months followed by outpatient treatment or to ambulatory outpatient treatment from the start (OP), and in Pusan to outpatient treatment with a plaster-of-Paris jacket (J) for nine months or to ambulatory treatment without any support (No J). A favourable status was achieved on their allocated regimen by 88% of patients at 10 years. Some of the remaining patients also attained a favourable status after additional chemotherapy and/or operation, and if these are included the proportion achieving such a status increases to 96%. There were five patients whose deaths were attributed to their spinal disease. A sinus or clinically evident abscess was present on at least one occasion in the 10-year period in 42% of the patients. Residual sinuses persisted at 10 years in two patients, at death at seven years in a third and at default in the seventh year in a fourth. Thirty-five patients had paraparesis at some time during the 10-year period, including two who died with paraplegia before five years. Complete resolution occurred in 26 patients (in six after additional chemotherapy and/or surgery). At 10 years two patients had severe paraplegia and one a moderate paraparesis.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Aims

Implant-related postoperative spondylodiscitis (IPOS) is a severe complication in spine surgery and is associated with high morbidity and mortality. With growing knowledge in the field of periprosthetic joint infection (PJI), equivalent investigations towards the management of implant-related infections of the spine are indispensable. To our knowledge, this study provides the largest description of cases of IPOS to date.

Aims

Patients with differentiated thyroid carcinomas (DTCs) have a favourable long-term survival. Spinal metastases (SMs) cause a decline in performance status (PS), directly affecting mortality and indirectly preventing the use of systemic therapies. Metastasectomy is indicated, if feasible, as it yields the best local tumour control. Our study aimed to examine the long-term clinical outcomes of metastasectomy for SMs of thyroid carcinomas.

Aims

The aims of this study were to determine the incidence and factors for developing periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) following hemiarthroplasty (HA) for hip fracture, and to evaluate treatment outcome and identify factors associated with treatment outcome.

Initial treatment of traumatic spinal cord injury remains as controversial in 2023 as it was in the early 19th century, when Sir Astley Cooper and Sir Charles Bell debated the merits or otherwise of surgery to relieve cord compression. There has been a lack of high-class evidence for early surgery, despite which expeditious intervention has become the surgical norm. This evidence deficit has been progressively addressed in the last decade and more modern statistical methods have been used to clarify some of the issues, which is demonstrated by the results of the SCI-POEM trial. However, there has never been a properly conducted trial of surgery versus active conservative care. As a result, it is still not known whether early surgery or active physiological management of the unstable injured spinal cord offers the better chance for recovery. Surgeons who care for patients with traumatic spinal cord injuries in the acute setting should be aware of the arguments on all sides of the debate, a summary of which this annotation presents.

Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2023;105-B(4):347–355.

Aims

Hip fracture commonly affects the frailest patients, of whom many are care-dependent, with a disproportionate risk of contracting COVID-19. We examined the impact of COVID-19 infection on hip fracture mortality in England.

Aims

The aim of this study was to determine whether early surgical treatment results in better neurological recovery 12 months after injury than late surgical treatment in patients with acute traumatic spinal cord injury (tSCI).