Defects of the vertebrae and back pain
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Symptoms of developmental defects of the vertebrae may be absent, and the defect itself can be inadvertently detected by radiation examination. The term developmental defects of vertebrae is used in those cases when their main cause is the anomaly of the vertebrae.
Only single medical institutions in the world have a sufficiently large experience of treatment and dynamic observation of children with vertebral anomalies and congenital deformities of the spine. Reflected in the literature, the experience of Twin Cities Spine Center, MN, the United States, the Novosibirsk Center for Spine Pathology, and the St. Petersburg Pediatric Medical Academy made it possible to fundamentally change the ratio of most orthopedists to congenital deformities of the spine. On a large clinical basis, it was proved that more than half of the children had these deformities found in the first year of life, in 30% of cases already at this age reaching grade III-IV. By the age of three, severe congenital malformations of the vertebrae have already been observed in more than 50% of patients. The lack of progression of congenital deformities of the spine in dynamics is observed only in 18% of cases. Taking into account the fact that in the total number of deformations of the spine the proportion of congenital congenitalities according to the data of different authors is from 2% to 11%, the theoretically calculated frequency of congenital spine defects can exceed 1 case per 100 children. Finally, congenital deformities of the spine should be considered among the most socially important diseases, because they are accompanied in a high percentage of cases by concomitant spinal cord defects (myelodysplasia) and secondary myelopathy.
Most classifications of congenital vertebrae defects are based on an x-ray anatomy picture and include various variants of three embryogenetic types of anomalies - violations of the formation, segmentation, and fusion of paired vertebral body bookmarks.
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