Spine
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Prospective inception cohort. ⋯ There is evidence for the validity of a single bothersomeness question as a measure of LBP severity. It has the potential to provide a practical standard scheme for classifying patients with LBP in clinical practice. However, further work is needed to clarify its usefulness in a clinical setting.
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Analysis of radiographic outcomes following surgical correction of scoliosis. ⋯ In this curve-matched cohort of Lenke Type I curves, PSF with TPS provided superior instrumented correction of main thoracic curves and spontaneous correction of TL/L curves. Perhaps more importantly, PSF/TPS demonstrated improved correction of thoracic torsion and rotation as compared with ASF in terms of RH (P = 0.005) and AVB-R ratio (P= 0.0001), with only one additional spinal segment fused on average.
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Study of interrater reliability. ⋯ This study shows that multiple raters, with training and guidelines, can reliably score pain drawings, and high consistency in the subsequent classification of cases of widespread pain can be obtained from such data.
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An in vitro biomechanical comparison of anteriorly placed lumbar plates, pedicle screws, and translaminar screws in the anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF) setting. ⋯ Although not as rigid as pedicle or translaminar screws, anterior lumbar plating does add significant stability to an ALIF and may provide a valuable, single-approach alternative to supplemental posterior fixation.
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Sequential study of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the spine for assessing the level of termination of the conus medullaris (CMT) and thecal sac (TST). ⋯ The CMT and TST displayed a wide range of values in our study. We detected small but systematic influences of gender and age on CMT and of age on TST, as well as a positive correlation between CMT and TST. These effects are small in amplitude, but they met all the criteria for statistical significance and have practical value for clinicians, as well as theoretical value for the medical and biologic community.