Study design:

Retrospective Study.

Objective:

This study aims to investigate variation in the number of thoracic and lumbar vertebrae, the prevalence of lumbosacral transitional vertebra (LSTV) and the prevalence of cervical ribs among surgical patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS).

Summary of background data:

Due to variation in the number of thoracic or lumbar vertebrae, inaccurate identification of vertebral levels has been found to be a contributory factor to wrong-level surgery.

Methods:

This was a retrospective study on AIS patients who underwent posterior spinal fusion. Demographic and anthropometric data (age, gender, height, weight and body mass index), radiographic data (Lenke curve type, pre-operative Cobb angle, vertebra numbering of cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine, presence of LSTV based on the Castellvi classification and the presence of cervical ribs) and clinical data were collected. Data was analysed and reported with mean and standard deviation for quantitative parameters and number and percentage for qualitative parameters. Multinomial logistic regression analyses were performed to identify factors associated with the outcomes of interest.

Results:

A total of 998 patients met inclusion criteria, of which 135 (13.5%) were males and 863 (86.5%) were females. The vertebrae number varied between 23 to 25 total vertebrae with 24 vertebrae considered as the typical number of vertebrae. The prevalence of atypical number of vertebrae (23 or 25) was 9.8% (98 patients). We found a total of 7 different variations in number of cervical, thoracic and lumbar vertebrae (7C11T5L, 7C12T4L, 7C11T6L, 7C12T5L, 7C13T4L, 7C12T6L and 7C13T5L) with 7C12T5L considered as the typical vertebrae variation. The total prevalence of patients with atypical vertebrae variation was 15.5% (155 patients). Cervical ribs were found in 2 (0.2%) patients while LSTV were found in 250 (25.1%) of patients. The odds of 13 thoracic vertebrae were higher in males (OR 5.17; 95% CI 1.25, 21.39) and the odds of 6 lumbar vertebrae were higher in LSTV (OR 3.93; 95% CI 2.58, 6.00).

Conclusion:

In this series, we identified a total of 7 different variations in the number of cervical, thoracic and lumbar vertebrae. The total prevalence of patients with atypical vertebrae variation was 15.5%. LSTV was found in 25.1% of the cohort. It is important to ascertain atypical vertebrae variations rather than the absolute number of vertebrae because variants such as 7C11T6L and 7C13T4L may still have typical numbers of vertebrae in total. However, due to the differences in the number of morphologically thoracic and lumbar vetrebrae, there may still be a risk of inaccurate identification.