Idiopathic scoliosis is still not a well-known disease, despite a great deal of research into its incidence rate. These studies have generally consisted of research into its prevalence, and are based on screening tests in schools and radiological evaluations. Recently, the opinion that screening of school students is not cost-effective has been established. Prevalence studies on idiopathic scoliosis in our country are also limited. Therefore, the aim of this study is to research the prevalence of idiopathic scoliosis by radiological screening, and also its connection with back pain.

With that purpose, 27,846 chest X-rays obtained between 2006 and 2011 were evaluated. The mean age was 31.4±9.9, and the gender distribution was 16,659 males (59.8%) and 11,187 females (40.2%). The patient records were obtained from the Patient Records System (PRS), the MRI records were obtained from the Radiological Images Records System (RIS), and these were evaluated retrospectively. In the second part of the study, X-rays of 549 patients with complaints of back pain were taken from their records, and their thoracic and dorso–lumbar X-rays were evaluated, considering the number of patients who had a scoliosis curvature of 10° or more, their gender, age, and the Cobb angle of the major curvatures. For the latter group, all highlighted individual prevalence values (total and gender-based) were calculated, considering the degree of scoliosis (10–30° or greater than 30°) between 20–40 years of age. Pain scores of the patients (Canadian Scale) were also evaluated, and it was determined if there was any correlation with the degree/portion of curvature of scoliosis.

This study shows that the prevalence of 10° of scoliosis in patients between the ages of 20 and 40 was 4.64%, and this prevalence was 1.5 times higher in women than in men. Overall, the prevalence of scoliosis was 24.2% in the entire 549 patients who applied to the hospital with back pain during the five-year study period and who had thoracic and thoracolumbar X-rays taken. There was a statistically significant correlation between the intensity of the curvature and the pain score (p<0.05).

As a result, this study contributes to the literature on scoliosis prevalence studies, of which there are very few in Turkey. Additionally, this study is the first study of the prevalence of scoliosis that has been performed in young adults (20–40 years old) in the entire literature. The prevalence (4.6%) of a scoliosis curvature of greater than 10° in our patients is in accordance with other studies in the literature. This study also suggests that scoliosis is correlated with significantly higher rates of adult back pain and fibromyositis.

Keywords: Idiopathic scoliosis, adult scoliosis, prevalence, screening, back pain