How effective is Scoliosis Surgery in improving lung volume?

[Dr Kalla]

Goldfinch could you ask the surgeons at your hospital what they have to say about this.

A study done in Zagreb, Croatia

Changes in pulmonary functional parameters after surgical treatment of idiopathic scoliosis

reported the following

"There is a controversy in results about influence of surgery on pulmonary function in idiopathic scoliosis. The aim of the study was to study pulmonary function in severe thoracic idiopathic scoliosis and to detect changes in pulmonary function after the three-dimensional anterior surgical correction in severe thoracic scoliosis. 91 patients at the age of 16 +/- 5.1 yrs underwent surgery in order to make a correction of scoliotic deformity. All the curves were greater than 70 degrees (86 +/- 5.1). Group I consisted of 60 patients with scoliotic curves between 70 degrees and 100 degrees, while group II consisted of 31 patients with curves greater than 100 degrees. All the patients were operated by anterior instrumentation and the average correction was 74% +/- 15 for group I, and 71% +/- 18 for group II. Vital capacity (VC) and forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1) in group I remained unchanged. In group II, VC improved for 11%, while forced expiratory volume (FEV) improved for 13.6%. Our conclusion is that there is a significant correlation between the percentage of achieved correction and pulmonary function."


How come that they manage to correct 3/4 of the scoliosis curve in cases below 100 degree Cobb angle and yet their measured breathing parameters did not improve?

[DrStitzel]

Here is even more research evidence that scoliosis surgery not only fails to improve pulmonary function scoliosis patients, but may actually make it worse.

"This study supports the previously published theory that any scoliosis surgery that disrupts the chest wall has a negative impact on pulmonary function,"

http://www.modernmedicine.com/modern....jsp?id=605388


AND.......Here is the conclusion from another study......

"These patients manifested no remarkable improvement in pulmonary function more than two years after surgery; three patients
showed deterioration. The results of tests performed less than two years postoperatively showed no improvement in pulmonary function, irrespective of the types of assessments used."

http://www.ejbjs.org/cgi/reprint/64/2/242.pdf