Although conventional open surgery would usually be the best choice for the treatment of patients with pathological thoracolumbar fractures,
database information from current real-world practice appears to support vertebroplasty as a viable choice for elderly people over 75 years of age.
Data from current real-world practice appears to support vertebroplasty as a viable choice for patients older than 75 with pathological thoracolumbar fractures, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine. With a lack of consensus on the long-term outcomes of treating pathological thoracolumbar fractures, including osteoporosis and oncologic problems, with vertebroplasty, researchers collected data on 8,625 randomly selected patients with pathological thoracolumbar fractures and conducted survival analyses to estimate the mortality risks associated with vertebroplasty, conventional open surgery, or conservative treatment. Compared with conservative treatment, conventional open surgery and vertebroplasty appeared to improve long-term survival, with adjusted hazard ratios (aHR) of 0.80 and 0.87, respectively. Although the study authors could not rule out confounding by indication, the survival advantage of vertebroplasty appeared to be more evident among those older than 75.
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