A randomized trial comparing balloon kyphoplasty and vertebroplasty for vertebral compression fractures due to osteoporosis.

Background And Purpose: Several trials have compared vertebral augmentation with nonsurgical treatment for vertebral compression fractures. This trial compares the efficacy and safety of balloon kyphoplasty and vertebroplasty.

Materials And Methods: Patients with osteoporosis with 1-3 acute fractures (T5-L5) were randomized and treated with kyphoplasty (n = 191) or vertebroplasty (n = 190) and were not blinded to the treatment assignment.

A randomized trial comparing 2 techniques of balloon kyphoplasty and curette use for obtaining vertebral body height restoration and angular-deformity correction in vertebral compression fractures due to osteoporosis.

Background And Purpose: Vertebral compression fractures often result in pain and vertebral deformity. We compared 2 different balloon kyphoplasty techniques both using intraoperative curettage.

Materials And Methods: Adults 50 years of age or older with osteoporosis and 1 acute VCF were randomized to undergo bilateral BKP in which the curette was used first (n = 57) followed by inflatable bone tamps or in which IBTs were used first, followed by curettage and a second IBT inflation (n = 55).

The morbidity of heparin therapy after development of pulmonary embolus in patients undergoing thoracolumbar or lumbar spinal fusion.

Study Design: The postoperative course of patients who developed a pulmonary embolus after thoracolumbar or lumbar spinal fusion treated with heparin was studied to quantify the morbidity risk of anticoagulation.

Objective: To compare the morbidity risk of heparinization with that of an alternative form of therapy--inferior vena cava filter placement.

Summary Of Background Data: Therapeutic heparinization was the current treatment of choice for patients who develop thromboembolic disease after surgery.

MR findings in the brains of compressed-air tunnel workers: relationship to psychometric results.

Cranial MR imaging was performed in 30 subjects who had been involved in compressed-air tunnel projects in and around Milwaukee, WI. Nineteen of these subjects had been exposed to various degrees of hyperbaric air as calculated by an exposure index (average PSI pressure gauge multiplied by the number of years exposed), while 11 of the subjects were age-matched controls who belonged to the same labor union but had not been exposed to hyperbaric air. All MR scanning was done on a 1.