Original Article

MEASUREMENT OF SPINAL CURVATURE ANGLES ON ADULTS

  • Nail DEMİREL
  • Luay ŞERİFOĞLU
  • Alptekin GÜL
  • Sinem GERGİN
  • Hanife Gülden DÜZKALIR
  • Recep BAŞARAN
  • Ali Haluk DÜZKALIR
  • Selçuk ÖZDOĞAN

Received Date: 11.09.2015 Accepted Date: 14.12.2015 J Turk Spinal Surg 2016;27(1):9-12

Objective:

The aim of the study is to inspect the angles of cervical lordosis (CL), thoracal (TK) and lumbar lordosis (LL) in adults to collect data of the normal mean values for developing spinal deformity patient population.

Materials and Method:

We inspected 135 thin-layered reconstructive computed tomography(CT) scans of whole spine that obtained in adult patients who were admitted to our hospital for emergency treatment retrospectively.

Results:

135 patients (60 females, 44.4%, and 75 males, 55.6%) were included in the study. Accordingly, mean age was 50.8±18.1 years, angles of CL was 28.5±6.4, TK 39.7±7.4 and LL was 31.7±6.2 degrees. When the measurements were compared between females and males, it was found that only LL was significantly different between genders (35.0±6.2 in females, and 29.1±5.0 in males, p=0.032), and females had greater values. Age (p=0.420), CL (p=0.083), and TK (p=0.903) were similar between females and males.

Conclusions:

This work provided a useful tool for analyzing and understanding sagittal imbalance in patients with spinal disease or deformity and also a means of calculating corrections to be made with treatment, established from the linear regression equations which were elaborated by reconstructive computed tomography.

Keywords: Cervical lordosis, Thoracal kyphosis, Lumbar lordosis, Spinal curvature