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Improved lumbar lordosis, sacral slope seen after interbody fusion
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Compared with patients who underwent posterior spine fusion, patients who underwent lateral interbody fusion showed significantly improved lumbar lordosis and sacral slope, based on results of a study published in Spine.
Yaser M.K. Baghdadi, MD, and colleagues studied 33 patients who had lateral interbody fusions (LIF) at 181 levels from T8 to L5 vertebrae for degenerative scoliosis between 1997 and 2011. Twenty-three of the patients underwent additional anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF) at 37 levels from L4 to S1. Researchers performed a 1:1 matched control comparison of these patients to those who underwent posterior spine fusion (PSF) by gender, age and diagnosis. They collected clinical and radiographical data to compare the matched cohorts.
Baghdadi and colleagues found lumbar lordosis was significantly restored in the LIF ± ALIF group compared with the PSF cohort. Postoperative segmental lumbar lordosis for the102 LIF levels significantly improved from 12° to 21, however they noted that the change over the 37 ALIF levels was not significant.
According to the results, sagittal plane alignment in the LIF ± ALIF group improved compared to the PSF controls, but there was only a trend for the change to be statistically significant.
In the results, sacral slope proved to be significantly higher in the LIF ± ALIF group compared to the PSF group, however pelvic tilt was lower in the lateral interbody fusion group, with or without ALIF and that finding also trend toward, but did not reach significance.
Disclosure: The researchers report receiving grants, royalties, patents, fees for participation in review activities and being board members to institutions relevant to this work.
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