|
Axial section through a mid–thoracic
vertebra of a 14–year–old boy who succumbed to a protracted
respiratory and circulatory insufficiency. He had an advanced
paralytic scoliosis that had not been surgically treated and which
had markedly progressed during the past two years. The slide shows a
grotesque deformation of the vertebra at the endplate level. The
deformity mainly consists of a rotation of the vertebral body to the
left. By contrast a less pronounced rotation and deformation of the
wide and sagittally elongated spinal is present. The spinal canal
has assumed a markedly trefoliate configuration. Note that the
spinal cord snugly is nested in the trefoliate recess at the
concavity of the scoliotic curve and that it also is rotated to the
right. The right pedicle is thinner than the pedicle on the left.
The asymmetry of the costotransverse processes (due to the
scoliosis, only the right process is in the plane of this section)
is associated with a marked asymmetry of the ribs and their
costocentral articulation (with the disc and the adjacent endplates)
and the costotransverse articulation (a true, synovial joint between
the head of the rib and the costotransverse process). Posteriorly,
the spinous process lies approximately in the midline. Note also the
open epiphysis of the head of the left rib. |
©2000 Wolfgang Rauschning, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Clinical Anatomy
Academic
University Hospital
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery
Uppsala, Sweden
Reproduction without permission is prohibited
http://www.akademiska.se/
Medtronic
Orthofix®
Paradigm Spine
