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Patients treated by magnetic growing rods for early-onset scoliosis reach the expected average growth

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Abstract

Introduction

Magnetic controlled growing rods (MCGRs) are one of the most common procedures to treat early-onset scoliosis (EOS). One of the major concerns is that patients treated with MGCR do not reach an adequate height with MGCR. The present study has one of the largest sample sizes of EOS patients treated by MGCR. This study aims to demonstrate the efficacy of the treatment with MGCR in EOS patients, comparing our results with the estimated growth.

Methods

Patients were consecutively enrolled from July 2011 to July 2022. The same surgical equipe performed all the procedures. The mean length of the patients was assessed by X-ray (T2–T12 and T2–S1 distance) by a team of expert radiologists. The estimated growth by Dimeglio was compared with the mean elongation obtained by year.

Results

65 patients were included. 16 patients underwent final surgery. In group 1, patients reached a growth of 3.6 ± 8.7 mm (T2–T12) and 9.6 ± 27.6 mm (T2–S1). In group 2, patients grew 5.4 ± 5.7 mm (T2–T12) and 9 ± 9 mm (T2–S1).81% of the estimated elongation during the treatment was obtained during the first surgery. The difference between Dimeglio’s estimated growth and the value obtained by MGCR was -4.3 ± 8.7 mm(T2–T12) and -12.3 ± 12.2 mm (T2–S1) in group 1 (p < 0.001) and -1.1 ± 4.2 mm (T2–T12) and -6.6 ± 6.0 mm (T2–S1) in group 2 (p = 0.001).

Conclusions

MGCR patients reached and overlapped the growth target according to the score by Dimeglio. However, the value of growth tended to reduce over the years. Lastly, obtaining the most significant elongation possible at the first surgery is mandatory, comprising 81% of the total value.

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Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to our policy statement of sharing clinical data only on request, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Unit of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, Department of Medicine and Surgery, Università Campus Bio- Medico Di Roma, Via Alvaro del Portillo 200, 00128, Rome, Italy

    Sergio De Salvatore

  2. Orthopedic Unit, Department of Surgery, Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, Rome, Italy

    Sergio De Salvatore, Leonardo Oggiano, Sergio Sessa, Cloe Curri, Caterina Fumo, Pier Francesco Costici & Laura Ruzzini

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  1. Sergio De Salvatore
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  3. Sergio Sessa
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Contributions

All authors read and approved the final manuscript. SS: conceptualization, writing original draft, validation, agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. LO: data acquisition, writing—review and editing, visualization, agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. SS: software, writing—review and editing, visualization, agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. CC: data analysis, software, visualization, agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. CF: data acquisition, writing—original draft, visualization, agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. PFC: data acquisition, writing—review and editing, validation, agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. LR: data acquisition, data creation, validation, agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sergio De Salvatore.

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The need to obtain informed consent was waived based on the retrospective design and anonymization of patient identifiers. All methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations.

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De Salvatore, S., Oggiano, L., Sessa, S. et al. Patients treated by magnetic growing rods for early-onset scoliosis reach the expected average growth. Spine Deform 12, 843–851 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43390-024-00820-3

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