Minimally invasive surgery for spinal compression fractures

  With the aging of the population and the increasing majority of elderly people, the incidence of osteoporosis in the elderly is increasing year by year. The incidence of fractures due to osteoporosis is increasing. Fractures of the extremities often require seeking treatment due to painful deformities. Spinal fractures due to osteoporosis are easily overlooked, especially in the elderly, who are less sensitive to pain and often have delayed treatment.  The authors have been performing minimally invasive percutaneous surgery since 2006, with 260 cases of spinal compression fractures with balloon-expandable retrobulbar kyphoplasty, distributed T5-L5, with the thoracolumbar segment being the most common. The amount of bone cement used varied from 3.5 to 8 ml, with an average of about 4.5 ml. 180 cases were followed up from 6 months to 8 years, with no cases of infection. There were 12 cases of spinal re-fracture. The operative time for a single vertebral body, initially around 40 minutes, is currently 15 minutes-20 minutes. One-stage surgery is advocated for multiple vertebral fractures, with surgery starting with the most recent fracture and progressing over to old fractures one by one, allowing for 2-3 vertebral bodies to be operated on simultaneously.  The operation is usually performed in the prone position with local anesthesia with lidocaine, with a preoperative preparation time of about 20 minutes and a surgical operation time of about 20 minutes per vertebral body. currently the operation can be done in the operating room under the C-arm machine or in an interventional center, with little impact on the patient and no special requirements for the patient’s age, medical disease, etc. More than 95% of patients can tolerate such an operation.  Trauma is the main cause of fracture. To determine whether a fracture has occurred after trauma, the patient can be analyzed in terms of both post-injury symptoms and functional impairment. A fracture is more likely to occur if there is severe pain at the injury site and localized appearance deformities such as hunchback. Some elderly people have severe osteoporosis and fractures can occur with minor stresses. Clinically encountered fracture causes such as falling, sitting in the air, coughing, sneezing, moving the sofa, carrying a light weight object, avoiding a falling object, and swatting a mosquito may all result in fracture. In terms of dysfunction, a fracture should be considered to have occurred when the lumbar fracture can only lie flat but not sit, or when sitting for a period of time and then trying to lie flat, having severe pain during the change of position, not daring to cough, constipation, etc. The simple percussion method can also help to determine fractures.  It should be noted that the elderly are prone to fracture even with minimal external force due to osteoporosis, and the pain nerves are less sensitive, which makes the pain after fracture not too obvious or the symptoms may be significantly delayed. Therefore, once an elderly person has a fall or an external impact, they should pay attention to determine whether they will fracture in time, and if necessary, they should go to the hospital for examination in time.