Spine
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Comparative Study
Supine thoracolumbar sagittal spine alignment: comparing computerized tomography and plain radiographs.
Imaging supine sagittal alignment study. ⋯ The results from this study provide a supine reference for sagittal spine alignment using the Cobb method for both CT scans and plain radiographs. It also demonstrates the high degree of reliability between measurements from 2 imaging sources and various observers as shown with the ICC values.
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A cross-sectional study. ⋯ Positive personality characteristics could play a crucial role in patient adjustment, and thus clinicians should take into account the positive path to capacity to better understand the chronic pain experience.
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An in vitro study using ovine intervertebral discs to correlate the effects of increasing advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) with disc hydration evaluated by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). ⋯ This study demonstrates that levels of AGEs in the IVD may affect the tissue water content. Moreover, these ribosylation-mediated changes in tissue hydration were detectable using T2 relaxation MRI. T2 relaxation MRI may provide a noninvasive tool to measure in vivo changes in disc hydration that are negatively correlated with the accumulation of AGEs.
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Retrospective study of a consecutive series of patients treated for proximal junctional kyphosis (PJK) of the upper thoracic and cervicothoracic spine. ⋯ For a selected cohort of patients who develop PJK of the upper thoracic and cervicothoracic spine, osteotomies, cervical traction, and intraoperative manual reduction provide a significant improvement of proximal junctional Cobb angles. To our knowledge, this is the first study to address treatment for symptomatic patients with this condition.
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Case Reports
Posterior column reconstruction with autologous rib graft after en bloc tumor excision.
Retrospective review of consecutive case series. ⋯ The use of autologous rib graft with a proximal step-cut and distal saddle-cut supplemented with posterior instrumentation allowed immediate stabilization of the posterior column defect created by the en bloc tumor resection. This technique of fashioning the graft and taking advantage of its natural curved structure for immediate press-fit was associated with graft incorporation in our cases.