To study the presence of back pain in the young adult with idiopathic scoliosis who has been treated orthopedically.
A retrospective study was performed in a group of 71 patients with idiopathic scoliosis treated with containment orthosis between the years 1978 and 1996. It included all the patients treated with any type of brace who came to periodic controls every 5 years, beginning at the age of 20. All those who were treated surgically or were older than 40 year were excluded.
Back pain. Other variables were curve location, scoliosis (brace) type, Cobb angle value, orthesic treatment duration, age at diagnosis, current and last control, follow-up time, treatment carried out and scoliosis severity.
The mean, median, range and standard deviation for continuous variables were determined, Frequencies for categorical variables, Chi-square, Student's T test and non-parametric tests were determined. A statistical significance level of P<.05 was assumed.
A total of 27 patients had back pain (38 % ). A significant difference was observed between the groups with and without pain in the follow-up time, these being 10.3 years versus 7.3 (95 % CI: 5-1) and the age of patients at the time of the last check-up, i.e. 27.3 versus 24.6 (95 % CI: 4.8-0.8)