Compared with healthy peers, congenital scoliosis patients treated with early spinal fusion have worse PFT and QOL scores at 6.9 years follow up. Patients with thoracic fusions had shorter spines, worse pulmonary function, and more pain than nonthoracic fused. The results may support alternatives to early spinal fusion such as growing rods, epiphysiodesis, and distraction thoracoplasty. Current efforts are underway to compare outcomes of this study to those of other treatments.
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Vitale et al. (2008) studied this question.
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