Letter to the Editor: Long versus Short Segment Instrumentation in Osteoporotic Thoracolumbar Vertebral Fracture

Article information

Asian Spine J. 2021;15(6):881-881

Publication date (electronic) : 2021 December 17

doi : https://doi.org/10.31616/asj.2021.0415.r1

Vishal Kumar , Sarvdeep Singh Dhatt , Vijay G. Goni , Akshat Srivastava

Department of Orthopaedics, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India

Corresponding author: Akshat Srivastava Department of Orthopaedics, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Madhya Marg, Sector 12 Chandigarh, 160012, India Tel: +91-7978378521, E-mail: akshatofficial@gmail.com

Received 2021 October 5; Revised 2021 October 5; Accepted 2021 October 17.

Dear Editor,

We have read the article by Girardo et al. [1] entitled “Long versus short segment instrumentation in osteoporotic thoracolumbar vertebral fracture” with great interest and congratulate the authors for this thought-provoking topic of interest; however, there are few pertinent queries that need to be addressed:

(1) There is heterogeneity in the management of osteoporotic fractures (OF) 4 type fractures. OF 4 types were managed by long as well as short segment instrumentation in the study. Factors responsible for the decision of long or short segment stabilization is not mentioned and this needs to be clarified for further understanding.

(2) Only a single patient had proximal junctional kyphosis in both, long segment and short segment instrumentation groups. This became significant in terms of pvalue which can be misleading and can be misinterpreted.

(3) Only 37 subjects for the study cohort are too small a sample to come to a concrete conclusion [2].

Notes

Conflict of Interest

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

References

1. Girardo M, Masse A, Risitano S, Fusini F. Long versus short segment instrumentation in osteoporotic thoracolumbar vertebral fracture. Asian Spine J 2021;15:424–30.

2. Pandey RM. Approaches to sample size calculation in comparative studies. Indian J Pediatr 1999;66:533–8.

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