Comparison of unilateral and bilateral puncture percutaneous kyphoplasty in the treatment of osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures

Objectives:To compare the clinical efficacy of unilateral and bilateral puncture PKP in the treatment of OVCFs and explored whether there is a difference in the efficacy of unilateral and bilateral puncture PKP after surgery.Methods:A total of 98 patients with OVCFs treated by PKP from August 2016 to June 2018 were selected. There were 62 cases in the unilateral puncture group and 36 cases in the bilateral puncture group. The operation time, the amount of bone cement injection, the height of the anterior edge of the vertebral body and the visual analog scale (Visual Analog Scale, VAS) scores before and after the operation were analyzed, and whether the differences between the 2 groups were statistically significant was analyzed.Results:All patients were followed up completely. The operation time and the number of X-ray fluoroscopies of the unilateral puncture group were significantly reduced compared to those of the bilateral group, and the difference was statistically significant (p<0.05). In terms of the bone cement injection volume, the average injection volume of the bilateral group was greater than that of the unilateral group, and the difference was statistically significant (p<0.05); the postoperative VAS scores of the 2 groups of patients were significantly improved, and the difference was statistically significant compared with that before surgery (p<0.05) but that of the unilateral group was not statistically significant compared with that of the bilateral group (p>0.05). The height of the anterior edge of the vertebral body in both groups was significantly improved compared with that before the operation, and the difference was statistically significant (p<0.05).Conclusion:Unilateral and bilateral puncture PKP can achieve good clinical efficacy in the treatment of osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures, but unilateral PKP has the advantages of short operation time and low X-ray exposure.

Osteoporosis (OP) is caused by a decrease in bone mass for a variety of reasons, especially a decrease in the amount of cancellous bone in the vertebral body and damage to the microstructure of bone tissue, bone mineral composition and bone matrix per unit volume. Osteoporosis is one of the diseases with high morbidity and mortality in the world and has become an important disease that endangers the health of middle-aged and elderly people.¹ Osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCFs) are one of the major complications of osteoporosis, which often cause stubborn waist and back aches. Severe thoracolumbar osteoporotic vertebral body compression fractures may lead to cardiopulmonary and other multisystem dysfunctions, seriously affecting the patient’s quality of life.²For the treatment of OVCFs, the current recommendations are conservative treatment and surgical treatment. Conservative treatment may cause various complications due to long-term bed rest, including bedsores, delayed fracture healing, deformity healing or nonunion, respiratory and urinary tract infections, and lower extremity venous thrombosis, which can threaten the life of the patient.^3,4 Therefore, patients with OVCFs who have early out-of-bed activity requirements and surgical indications are more likely to undergo surgical treatment.The traditional surgical treatment for OVCFs is posterior laminectomy and decompression pedicle screw internal fixation, but due to the higher degree of osteoporosis in older patients, the long-term screw internal fixation effect is poor, and surgical trauma has a greater impact on patients; thus, the long-term efficacy is not ideal.⁵ In recent years, with the improvement of minimally invasive spine technology, percutaneous vertebralplasty (PVP) and percutaneous balloon dilatation kyphoplasty (Percutaneous kyphoplasty, PKP) have achieved satisfactory results in the treatment of OVCF. Compared with PVP, PKP uses a balloon or other expansion system to expand the compressed vertebral body to form a relatively low-pressure vertebral body space, followed by low-pressure injection of bone cement, which can better correct kyphosis and reduce the penetration of bone cement leakage.^6,7The PKP surgical puncture consists of a bilateral pedicle approach or a unilateral pedicle approach. While the advantages of the transdermal bilateral pedicle approach include better diffusion of bone cement and reduced risk of puncture, there are shortcomings, such as long operation time, large radiation exposure and high hospitalization costs.⁸ At present, there is no unified conclusion as to which PKP approach is better for use to treat OVCFs. Therefore, it is of great clinical significance to clarify the difference between unilateral and bilateral PKP in the treatment of OVCFs.The OVCFs are one of the common diseases that cause lumbago and kyphosis in the elderly. At present, PKP is one of the common methods for the treatment of OVCFs. Bilateral puncture of the pedicle approach is the classic operation method of PKP, but some scholars believe that unilateral puncture bone cement injection can achieve the same surgical effect. This record-based case–control study retrospectively analyzed patients with OVCFs treated in our hospital from August 2016 to June 2018, performed an in-depth analysis and comparison of the unilateral and bilateral PKP treatment of OVCFs, and provided a reference for the clinical approach to PKP treatment of OVCFs.