Morphometry of the sacrum for clinical use

Degenerative disease and instability in the lower lumbar spine may necessitate fusion and stabilization supplemented by instrumentation to the sacrum. However, screw placement in a reasonable position is more difficult to achieve because of the unique anatomy of the first sacral (S1) vertebra. Therefore, this study has been conducted to evaluate sacrum anatomy of the Western Anatolian population in terms of morphometric measurements and make a comparison with previous studies as well as giving a guidance to the surgeons. In this study, 60 dry adult sacrums (30 male and 30 female) were assessed for morphometric analysis. The measurement data for the sacrum and S1 vertebra revealed that there was no significant difference between both sexes except the sacral width and sacral canal width (p<0.05). In the present study, the ratio of S1 corpus’ width to sacral width was lower in females compared with males. A detailed knowledge of the morphometric data about sacrum is very important for spinal surgery, as pedicle screw insertion is crucial in spinal instrumentation in order to prevent neurological injury and/or fixation failure.