Disease severity and treatment in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: the impact of race and economic status.

Background Context: Ethnic disparities have been documented in the incidence and treatment of many diseases. Additionally, race and socioeconomic status (SES) have been shown to affect disease severity and access to care in the recent orthopedic literature.

Purpose: To assess the role, if any, that race, SES, and health insurance type play in disease severity and treatment decisions in patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis.

Discriminative validity of the Scoliosis Research Society 22 questionnaire among five curve-severity subgroups of adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis.

Background Context: Previous studies of the Scoliosis Research Society (SRS) 22 discriminative validity have lacked sufficiently matched study groups and were limited to a comparison with three or fewer subgroups of disease severity.

Purpose: To evaluate the discriminative validity of SRS-22 by assessing the questionnaire's ability to discriminate among five groups of pretreatment adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) patients with increasing curve severity.

Study Design: Retrospective review of prospectively administered surveys.

Low-density versus high-density thoracic pedicle screw constructs in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: do more screws lead to a better outcome?

Background Context: Thoracic pedicle screw (TPS) constructs have improved curve correction measurements compared with hook and hybrid constructs in the treatment of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS), but the optimal implant density, or the number of screws per level, remains unknown in the treatment of flexible thoracic curves.

Purpose: To determine how implant density affects clinical outcome, radiographic outcome, and cost in the treatment of Lenke Curve Type I AIS.

Study Design: A retrospective clinical study.

Multicenter validation of a formula predicting postoperative spinopelvic alignment.

Object: Sagittal spinopelvic imbalance is a major contributor to pain and disability for patients with adult spinal deformity (ASD). Preoperative planning is essential for pedicle subtraction osteotomy (PSO) candidates; however, current methods are often inaccurate because no formula to date predicts both postoperative sagittal balance and pelvic alignment. The authors of this study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of 2 novel formulas in predicting postoperative spinopelvic alignment after PSO.

An aggressive group a streptococcal cellulitis of the hand and forearm requiring surgical debridement.

Group A streptococcus is responsible for a diverse range of soft tissue infections. Manifestations range from minor oropharyngeal and cellulitic skin infections to more severe conditions such as necrotizing fasciitis and septic shock. Troubling increases in the incidence and the severity of streptococcal infections have been reported over the past 25 years.