What surgical interventions are available for scoliosis? - Lawrence Vogel, MD

When scoliosis becomes much more severe, then it usually requires some form of surgical interventions. There’s a variety of surgical interventions depending on how old the person is. If they’re very young and they have a very progressive curve, there are a couple different techniques our orthopedic surgeons, spine surgeons are using now, that allow individuals to grow, and yet try to, at the same time, correct the spine fusion. So you have things such as growing rods, so they, every six months or nine months they go in there and just kind of ratchet it up. One of the newer systems that they use is something called the titanium rib, or Veptr, VEPTR, kind of a funny name for a titanium rib, which they…but again helps one to correct the curve as someone is growing. It doesn’t require fusion of the bone, but rather kind of like, you’re jacking-up the spine a bit, you know—go in there every six to nine months and, just kind of, lengthen it, so that they can keep up with the growth.