Objectives:

To compare the early stage clinical and radiological results of patients suffering from thoracolumbar vertebral fracture, who we operated with the long segment (LS) and short segment (SS+) stabilization techniques, including the fractured vertebra.

Materials and Methods:

Thirty-eight patients who were operated in our clinic for T11-L2 vertebral fracture between January 2014 and August 2021 were included in the study. The radiological and clinical results obtained retrospectively for two different operating techniques were compared. The visual analogue scale (VAS) was used for evaluating pain intensity.

Results:

There were 17 female and 21 male patients. The mean age was 40.39 years. Of the patients, 28 were operated due to traffic accidents, 10 due to falls. LS was performed in 20 patients and SS+ was performed in 18 patients. Operation times, blood loss, preoperative local kyphosis angle and corpus anterior height loss, postoperative mobilization time, postoperative VAS, hospital stay, postoperative local kyphosis angle and corpus anterior height loss for LS and SS+ patients were 171-141 min, 400-300 mL, 11.70°-11.11°, 46-45%, 1.7-1.1 day, 4.8-3.3, 6.4-4.6 day, 5.30°-4.89°, and 29.70-30%, respectively. In the SS+ group, there were statistically significant differences in terms of operation times, blood loss, postoperative VAS values, postoperative mobilization time and number of days of hospitalization compared to the LS patients group. There was no difference in radiological measurements.

Conclusion:

The early stage clinical results of SS+ stabilization including the fractured vertebra may be better than LS stabilization. Further clinical studies are needed on this subject.

Keywords: Local Kyphosis Angle, Anterior Corpus Height Loss, Fractured Vertebra, Posterior Stabilization, Thoracolumbar Fracture