The results of surgical treatment for adult scoliosis.

This study was done to define and characterize those adult patients with scoliosis who will have problems of pain and/or progression leading to a surgical procedure and to review the results of these surgical procedures. The authors reviewed the cases of 49 adult patients who had undergone surgical treatment for scoliosis (average follow-up, 34 months; range, 24-140 months). The patients were categorized according to age, which allowed analysis of the data comparing age and the incidence and level of pain, age versus the degree of curvature, and age versus the incidence of progression. The relative incidence of pain and progression as indications for surgery were found to vary with respect to age. In the younger groups, progression was more often the indication for surgery than in the older groups. The younger groups also had larger curves than did the older groups, on average. The degree of pain was not found to correlate with the magnitude of the deformity. Surgical complications occurred in 20 patients; however, 14 of these were minor complications during the perioperative period, which did not result in any sequelae. Surgical treatment can be done with a relatively low serious complication rate and good results in terms of pain relief and reasonable correction of the deformity.