Short-segment pedicle screw instrumentation constructs for the treatment of thoracolumbar fractures gained popularity in the 1980s.
Instrumentation constructs are designed to maintain spinal alignment, to maximize the likelihood of achieving solid arthrodesis, and to minimize the probability of developing a junctional syndrome.
Surgeons continue to debate the need for a cross-link (CL) in posterior spinal instrumentation constructs with segmental pedicle screws in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS).
Instrumentation of the osteoporotic spine can be managed by long instrumentation constructs, but these increase operative time and hemorrhage and elongate the lever arm on the construct terminal end causing increased pullout forces on the terminal screws.
This situation can be exacerbated in long instrumentation constructs, where large axial pullout forces are generated due to cantilever bending at the proximal levels during forward flexion [ 17, 18].
Augmentation of the short-segment pedicle instrumentation (SSPI) construct with offset laminar hooks has been recommended as a means of preventing fixation failure in thoracolumbar fractures [ 9, 30].
Four patients had 1-level hemicorpectomy using a minimally invasive expandable tubular retractor system (X-TUBE, METRX, Medtronic, USA) with a short construct instrumentation using Longitude FNS system (Medtronic, USA) augmented with a screw on the index level contralateral to the corpectomy approach and polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) was injected to through all screws and 1(f)).
No study to date has addressed the effects of reduced posterior instrumentation mass on interbody construct techniques.
Scheuermann's kyphosis has long been treated by a two-staged fusion and instrumentation with a hybrid construct using hooks, pedicle screws, and sublaminar wires.
Since it is hard to have homogeneous specimen from the cadaveric samples, the current synthetic model may provide a stable environment that can observe single or coupled factors such as segmental lordosis, contact areas and load-sharing of the instrumentation to optimize the construct.
