Spine
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We present, to the best of our knowledge, the first reported case of craniovertebral junction tuberculosis with complete quadriplegia in an infant. ⋯ Craniovertebral tuberculosis is difficult to diagnose and treat in infants. A high index of suspicion is essential for a prompt diagnosis and treatment, which is all the more crucial in this age group.
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Pedicle screw fixation (PSF) has been used for the setting of a lumbar interbody fusion. ⋯ Geometric constraints caused by PSF will reduce substantially the bone stress level and the relative motion, and therefore be more likely to allow bone ingrowth at the bone-cage interface, compared with the stand-alone ALIF. The use of pedicle screw stabilization would have significant beneficial effects on the rate of interbody fusion, regardless of whether ALIF or PLIF was used.
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Lumbar vertebral segments from a large cross-sectional population of male and female sand rats were assessed for quantitative determination of lumbar endplate bone mineral density (BMD) and radiologic features. ⋯ Results expand our understanding of the association of age and gender to endplate sclerosis patterns in the lumbar spine, and support the hypothesis that endplate sclerosis may play a role in disc degeneration.
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Comparative Study
Immediate biomechanical effects of lumbar posterior dynamic stabilization above a circumferential fusion.
Biomechanical in vitro human cadaveric lumbar flexibility testing with 6 sequential treatments. ⋯ ROM at the superior adjacent level (L2-L3) demonstrated no significant difference between intact, destabilized, one-level posterior fixation, and one-level circumferential fusion at the index level (L3-L4) when comparing posterior dynamic stabilization to rigid rod fixation. However, ROM at the superior adjacent level (L2-L3) was significantly greater for lateral bending and axial rotation when both levels (L2-L3 and L3-L4) were stabilized with a dynamic stabilization system. When the functional spinal units were instrumented with a two-level hybrid construct, two-level posterior instrumentation (L2-L3 and L3-L4) with a cage at the index level (L3-L4), all bending modes generated significantly greater ROM for the dynamic stabilization group at L2-L3 compared with rigid rod fixation.