Restoration of vertebral body height in traumatic thoracolumbar fractures: open versus minimal invasive surgery - which is better?

Background Percutaneous minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has been increasingly implemented to treat thoracolumbar (TL) fracture against a conventional open pedicle screw fixation (OPSF) with desirable radiological and clinical outcomes. Studies in the Indian context are required to determine the efficiency of MIS over OPSF. Objective To compare restoration and maintenance of vertebral body height (VBH) following MIS versus OPSF. Methods A prospective comparative study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital. Patients (n = 36) aged 18-65 years (males = 23, females = 13) with traumatic TL fractures were identified. Eighteen of them underwent OPSF and other eighteen underwent MIS. The radiological outcomes like anterior and posterior vertebral body height percentage (AVBH % and PVBH %) restoration and maintenance were evaluated. Quantitative variables were analyzed and described using mean ± standard deviation and qualitative variables were presented using frequency and percentage. Student t-test was used to analyse continuous data and Chi-square/Fisher Exact test was used to analyse categorical data. Results The mean age of the patients was 38.8 years. The majority of fractures were seen in the T12-LI segment (52.7 %). The AVBH % restoration and maintenance in OPSF was significantly higher compared to that of MIS at immediate post-operative (IPO) period (p = 0.01), 6 weeks (p = 0.02) and 12 weeks (p = 0.006) post-surgery. Long segment stabilization provided statistically significant AVBH and PVBH values for OPSF compared to MIS (p 0.05). Superficial surgical site infection (SSSI) was seen in both the groups without any statistical significance between them (p > 0.05). Conclusion OPSF is superior over MIS in the restoration of AVBH. Restoration of PVBH was also better with OPSF although not statistically significant. OPSF with longer segment fixation had better restoration of both AVBH and PVBH. The presence or absence of pedicle screw at fractured vertebral level did not seem to have any significance in both the groups. However, the MIS approach can be a reasonable alternative to open surgery with potential advantages like better clinical and functional outcome. A selected population of patients treated with MIS will show better surgical outcomes.