Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Osteoporosis is characterized as bone microstructure damage of the whole body and systemic osteopenia. Some scholars believe that the anterior vertebral height of patients with osteoporosis cannot decrease, but shows a trend of increase. 
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the correlation between degenerative lumbar scoliosis and osteoporosis.
METHODS: Thirty-seven patients with degenerative lumbar scoliosis were selected as observation group and another 37 inpatients with no lumbar scoliosis as control group. Modified Cobb method was used to detect the maximum angle between parallel lines to the endplate on the T12-L5 vertebrae, and the vertebrae with these two parallel lines were regarded as upper and lower vertebrae. Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry was used to measure the bone mineral density of L2-L4 segments, femoral neck, Ward’s triangle and femoral trochanter. Linear regression analysis was used to analyze the correlation between osteoporosis and degenerative lumbar scoliosis.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: There were significant differences in the T values in the L2-L4 segments, femoral neck, Ward’s triangle and femoral trochanter between the observation and control groups (P < 0.05), and the bone density of the femoral parts was lower than that of the lumbar vertebrae (L2-L4). The incidence of osteoporosis in the patients with lumbar scoliosis was significantly higher than that in the patients with no lumbar scoliosis (P < 0.05). Osteoporosis was a risk factor for degenerative lumbar scoliosis, and the T values of the lumbar vertebra and proximal femur had no remarkable correlation with Cobb’s angles. These findings indicate that osteoporosis is the risk factor for degenerative lumbar scoliosis, but it has no correlation with the severity of scoliosis.

Key words: Osteoporosis, Scoliosis, Bone Density