Patterns of extra-spinal left-right skeletal asymmetries in adolescent girls with lower spine scoliosis: relative lengthening of the ilium on the curve concavity & of right lower limb segments.

Extra-spinal skeletal length asymmetry have been reported for the upper limbs and periapical ribs of patients with thoracic adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. This paper reports (1) a third pattern with relative lengthening of the ilium on the concavity of lower spine scolioses, and (2) a fourth pattern of relative lengthening of the right total leg and right tibia unrelated statistically to the severity or side of lower spinal scolioses. The findings pose the question: are these anomalous extra-spinal left-right skeletal length asymmetries unconnected with the pathogenesis of AIS. Or, are they indicative of what may also be happening to some vertebral physes as an initiating pathogenic mechanism for the scoliosis?