TY - JOUR T1 - Changes in cervical spine curvature in pediatric patients following occipitocervical fusion. AU - Moorthy,Ranjith K, AU - Rajshekhar,Vedantam, Y1 - 2009/02/19/ PY - 2008/03/19/received PY - 2009/01/24/revised PY - 2009/2/20/entrez PY - 2009/2/20/pubmed PY - 2009/9/4/medline SP - 961 EP - 7 JF - Child's nervous system : ChNS : official journal of the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery JO - Childs Nerv Syst VL - 25 IS - 8 N2 - OBJECTIVE: The study aims to assess changes in cervical spine curvature following occipitocervical fusion (OCF) in the pediatric population. METHODS: In a retrospective study, the angle of sagittal curvature and whole cervical spine alignment were determined in the preoperative, immediate postoperative, and follow-up radiographs in 14 patients (<20 years of age) who underwent OCF for developmental atlantoaxial instability between 1995 and 2006. At follow-up, the mean angle of sagittal curvature showed a statistically significant increase from 22+/-10.1 degrees immediately following surgery to 35.9+/-18 degrees at follow-up (p = 0.001). Six patients had exaggerated lordosis (defined as >10 degrees increase in the angle of sagittal curvature). The sagittal curvature angle did not show any worsening in seven patients following removal of the implant. CONCLUSIONS: OCF in the pediatric population can result in an increase in the lordotic curvature of the cervical spine that might stabilize following removal of the metal implant within a year of surgery. SN - 1433-0350 UR - https://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/19225783/Changes_in_cervical_spine_curvature_in_pediatric_patients_following_occipitocervical_fusion_ L2 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00381-009-0828-4 DB - PRIME DP - Unbound Medicine ER -