ABSTRACT

The most common treatment of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis is posterior instrumentation and fusion.With this treatment correction of curve and decreasing of Cobb angles are successfully done but this is not always the patientsʼ primary concern. For this reason questionnaires developed for evaluate the quality of life. There are numerous questionnaires that evaluate quality of life in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis and SRS-22 questionnaire is the most widely used tool. The aim of this study is to determine the quality of life 2 years after posterior fusion surgery in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis patients compared with untreated patients with similar curves.

Between April 2009 and June 2010 on follow up visit after x-ray evaluation 34 patients asked to fill SRS-22 questionnaireʼs Turkish version to compare similar curves observation patients who had curves lower than 20° were chosen. In this group patients Risser 4 or 5 iliac ossifications were chosen for control group.

Average Cobb angle was 7.4°±3.5° in surgery patients. With a scoliometer measurement average gibosity was 3.1°±0.5°. Average Cobb angle of observation group was 8.0°±3.8° average gibosity was 2.9°±0.6°. According to SRS-22 questionnaire results there were no statistically difference in terms of pain, function and mental health (p>0.05). In self image and satisfaction domains scores of surgery group were better.

In this study scores of pain, function and mental health domains were similar for both groups. This points out that after acute effects of posterior fusion surgery SRS-22 scores were similar with untreated patients and posterior fusion surgery did not affect the quality of life in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis patients.