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• Thoracolumbar vertebral fracture incidents usually occur secondary to a high velocity trauma in young patients and to minor trauma or spontaneously in older people.

• Osteoporotic vertebral fractures are the most common osteoporotic fractures and affect one-fifth of the osteoporotic population.

• Percutaneous fixation by ‘vertebroplasty’ is a tempting alternative for open surgical management of these fractures.

• Despite discouraging initial results of early trials for vertebroplasty, cement augmentation proved its superiority for the treatment of symptomatic osteoporotic vertebral fracture when compared with optimal medical treatment.

• Early intervention is also gaining ground recently.

• Kyphoplasty has the advantage over vertebroplasty of reducing kyphosis and cement leak.

• Stentoplasty, a new variant of cement augmentation, is also showing promising outcomes.

• In this review, we describe the additional techniques of cement augmentation, stressing the important aspects for success, and recommend a thorough evaluation of thoracolumbar fractures in osteoporotic patients to select eligible patients that will benefit the most from percutaneous augmentation. A detailed treatment algorithm is then proposed.

Cite this article: EFORT Open Rev 2017;2:293–299. DOI: 10.1302/2058-5241.2.160057

• Correction manoeuvres are as important as the other issues such as hardware selection, graft options, fusion and osteotomy techniques in the surgical treatment of spinal deformities.

• The property of materials demonstrating both viscous and elastic characteristics when undergoing deformation is called visco-elasticity. Purely elastic materials change in shape with a stress, and go back to their initial form when the stress is removed. However, visco-elastic materials, like the spine, may protect their new formation unless a back stress is applied. Time is a very important parameter during manoeuvre application to the spine because of its visco-elastic behavior.

• The most common correction manoeuvres that can be used for spinal deformities are rod de-rotation, distraction-compression, in situ rod bending, segmental de-rotation, en bloc de-rotation and cantilever.

• Spontaneous correction of a minor curve is possible after selective fusion of a major curve due to coupling phenomenon.

Cite this article: EFORT Open Rev 2017;2. DOI: 10.1302/2058-5241.2.170002. Originally published online at www.efortopenreviews.org

• The aims of spinal deformity surgery are to achieve balance, relieve pain and prevent recurrence or worsening of the deformity.

• The main types of osteotomies are the Smith-Petersen osteotomy (SPO), pedicle subtraction osteotomy (PSO), bone-disc-bone osteotomy (BDBO) and vertebral column resection (VCR), in order of increasing complexity.

• SPO is a posterior column osteotomy in which the posterior ligaments and the facet joints are removed and correction is performed through the disc space. A mobile anterior disc is essential. SPO is best in patients with +6-8 cm C7 plumbline. The amount of correction is 9.3° to 10.7°/level (1°/mm bone).

• PSO is a technique where the posterior elements and pedicles are removed. Then a triangular wedge through the pedicles is removed and the posterior spine is shortened using the anterior cortex as a hinge. The ideal candidates are patients with a severe sagittal imbalance. A single level osteotomy can produce 30° 40° of correction. A single level osteotomy may restore global sagittal balance by an average of 9 cm with an upper limit of 19 cm.

• BDBO is an osteotomy done above and below a disc level. A BDBO provides correction rates in the range of 35° to 60°. The main indications are deformities with the disc space as the apex and severe sagittal plane deformities.

• VCR is indicated for rigid multi-planar deformities, sharp angulated deformities, hemivertebra resections, resectable spinal tumours, post-traumatic deformities and spondyloptosis. The main indication for a VCR is fixed coronal plane deformity.

• The type of osteotomy must be chosen mainly according to the aetiology, type and apex of the deformity. One may start with SPOs and may gradually advance to complex osteotomies.

Cite this article: EFORT Open Rev 2017;2:73-82.

DOI: 10.1302/2058-5241.2.160069

• An appropriate protocol and unified management of thoracolumbar fractures without neurological impairment has not been well defined.

• This review attempts to elucidate some controversies regarding diagnostic tools, the ability to define the most appropriate treatment of classification systems and the evidence for conservative and surgical methods based on the recent literature.

Cite this article: Vilà-Canet G, García de Frutos A, Covaro A, Ubierna MT, Caceres E. Thoracolumbar fractures without neurological impairment: a review of diagnosis and treatment. EFORT Open Rev 2016;1:332-338. DOI: 10.1302/2058-5241.1.000029

• Lumbar spinal stenosis has become one of the most disabling pathologies in the elderly population.

• Some additional conditions such as foraminal stenosis or degenerative spondylosis with a history of back pain and leg pain must be considered before treatment.

• A completely appropriate protocol and unified management of spinal stenosis have not yet been well defined.

• The objective of this literature review is to provide evidence-based recommendations reflected in the highest-quality clinical literature available to address key clinical questions surrounding the management of degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis.

Cite this article: Covaro A, Vilà-Canet G, García de Frutos A, Ubierna MT, Ciccolo F, Caceres E. Management of degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis: an evidence-based review article. EFORT Open Rev 2016;1:267-274. DOI: 10.1302/2058-5241.1.000030.

• Adult spinal deformity (ASD) is a very diverse condition that affects the quality of life of the involved individuals deeply. There is an ongoing discussion as to whether treatment should be surgical (which is potentially dangerous) or non-surgical.

• In addition to a systematic review of literature on the surgical treatment of ASD with special emphasis on complications, a decision-analysis was performed using the patient information within a European multi-centric database of ASD.

• The probabilities of improvement and complications as well as associated disease burden (utility) were calculated at the baseline and at first-year follow-up.

• Decision-analysis suggests that the chances of clinical improvement are significantly higher with surgical treatment. Though surgical treatment is significantly more prone to complications, the likelihood of improvement remains higher than that offered by non-surgical treatment.

• Surgical treatment of ASD appears to be associated with a higher likelihood of clinical improvement. Future work needs to focus on refining the criteria for appropriate patient selection and decreasing the incidence of complications.

Cite this article: Acaroglu E, European Spine Study Group. Decision-making in the treatment of adult spinal deformity. EFORT Open Rev 2016;1:167-176. DOI: 10.1302/2058-5241.1.000013.