Adult Idiopathic Scoliosis

Adult idiopathic scoliosis is a common adult spinal deformity, which usually develops from adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. So the clinical manifestations and the radiographic findings of adult idiopathic scoliosis are similar to adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. At a younger age, when the patient’s primary aim is to correct the deformity, the patient may have no clinical symptoms or only occasional low back pain. At this time, patients can be treated by referring to the surgical indications and treatment principles of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. With the increase of age, adult idiopathic scoliosis may be associated with many degenerative changes, such as thoracolumbar kyphosis, spondylolisthesis, vertebral subluxation, spinal stenosis, etc. Patients may be accompanied by more severe low back pain and lower limb neurological symptoms. At this time, we need to analyze the patient as an adult spinal deformity and pay more attention to the correction of sagittal imbalance and the improvement of neurological function while correcting the coronal deformity. In addition, for older patients, we also need to make an overall preoperative assessment of the patients to be alert to the comorbidities such as diabetes and osteoporosis, which may result in further complications.