title: Kyphoplasty vs conservative treatment: a case-control study in 110 post-menopausal women population. Is kyphoplasty better than conservative treatment?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Osteoporosis is a highly prevalent disease worldwide. Consequences of vertebral osteoporotic fractures include pain and progressive vertebral collapse resulting in spinal kyphosis, decreased quality of life, disability and mortality. Minimally invasive procedures represent an advance to the treatment of osteoporotic VCFs. Despite encouraging results reported by many authors, surgical intervention in an osteoporotic spine is fraught with difficulties. Advanced patients age and comorbidities are of great concern.
  
  
  METHODS
  We designed a retrospective case-control study on 110 post-menopausal women consecutively visited at our institution. Study population was split in a surgical and a conservative cohort, according to the provided treatment.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Kyphoplasty treated patients had lower back pain VAS scores at 1 month as compared with conservatively treated patients (p < 0.05). EQ5D validated questionnaire also showed a better quality of life at 1 month for surgically treated patients (p < 0.05). SF-12 scores showed greater improvements at 1 month and 3 months with statistically significant difference between the two groups just at 3 months (p < 0.05). At 12 months, scores from all scales were not statistically different between the two cohorts, although surgically treated patients showed better trends than conservatively treated patients in pain and quality of life. Kyphoplasty was able to restore more than 54.55% of the original segmental kyphosis, whereas patients in conservative cohort lost 6.67% of the original segmental kyphosis on average.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Kyphoplasty is a modern minimal invasive surgery, allowing faster recovery than bracing treatment. It can avoid the deformity in kyphosis due to VCF. In fact, the risk to develop a new vertebral fracture after the first one is very high.
authors.affiliation: Division of Spine Surgery, Division of Orthopaedics; Department of Geriatrics, Neuroscience and Orthopaedics, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart School of Medicine, Rome, "A. Gemelli" University Hospital, Rome, Italy. enrico.pola@rm.unicatt.it.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Colangelo
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Nasto
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Genitiempo
authors.forename: V M
authors.initials: VM
authors.lastname: Formica
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Autore
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Pambianco
authors.forename: F C
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Tamburrelli
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cerulli
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pola
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001915:Braces / Q000009:adverse effects; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D058498:Kyphoplasty / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007738:Kyphosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery; D008875:Middle Aged; D019060:Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000379:methods; D015663:Osteoporosis, Postmenopausal / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000601:surgery*; D058866:Osteoporotic Fractures / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery*; D010146:Pain / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery; D010147:Pain Measurement; D011788:Quality of Life; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016103:Spinal Fractures / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016896:Treatment Outcome