26 patients who had thoracolumbar spine fractures were treated with Harrington rods and segmental sublaminar wires between 1992-1995, in department of orthopaedics and traumatoiogy; in Haydarpaşa Numune Hospital, İstanbul. Because of the neurologic findings, anterior decompression and grafting in addition to the posterior instrumentation were done in two patients.

Average “follow-up time was 14 months (7-25). There were 23 fractures in 20 patients, who had enough follow-up. 16 of them were burst fractures, 6 of them were fracture-dislocations, and one of them was compression fracture.

Preoperativeiy average local kyphosis angle was 23.3 degrees, postoperatively it was 10.7 degrees, in the last follow-up it was 17.8 degrees.

Preoperativeiy average anterior vertebral body compression was 44.7%, postoperatively it was 24.7%, in the last follow-up it was 30.6%.

Postoperatively average time that patients used TLSO corset was 4 months (1 week-1 year).Patients treated with this method had follovving complications; one patient had superficial infection, one rod was broken in another one, lower hooks were dislodged from lamina in two patients. İn the last follow-up, average loss of correction was 7.1 degrees.

In the last 8 patients, we used DTT for making the system rectangular forproviding the rotational stability.

Complications related with Harrington system were discussed in the literatüre. Patients who had poor economic status, this method could be used effectively if fusion was done, TLSO corset was used and follow-up was made routinely.

Keywords: Harri-Luque, segmental spinal instrumentation, surgical treatment, thoracolumbar spine fractures