Does Decreased Surgical Stress Really Improve the Psychosocial Health of Early-onset Scoliosis Patients?: A Comparison of Traditional Growing Rods and Magnetically-controlled Growing Rods Patients Reveals Disappointing Results

Study Design. Cross-sectional case-control study. Objective. Compare psychosocial profile of magnetically-controlled growing rod (MCGR) patients to traditional-growing rod (TGR) with an array of psychiatric tools, expecting improvement in MCGR due to decreased number of surgical procedures. Summary of Background Data. TGR treatment has had positive clinical and radiographic results; however, upward of 10 surgical sessions and high complication rates have called into question the quality of life of these children. Improvement with the introduction of the MCGR is expected. Methods. GR patients with minimum of 2-years follow-up were recruited. None had neurological conditions. All underwent testing with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised, and only those in the normal range were included. Patients filled out questionnaires with mental health professionals to measure psychosocial status. MCGR patients’ results were compared to TGR patients. Results. Twenty-seven patients met criteria (10 MCGR, 17 TGR): average age at enrollment 11.8 years (range 5.9–17). MCGR group was significantly younger (9.1 vs. 13.3 yr) and had significantly shorter follow-up (45.6 vs. 82.8 mo) (P 
Source: Spine - Category: Orthopaedics Tags: DEFORMITY Source Type: research