ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Unilateral percutaneous vertebroplasty is a widely accepted treatment for osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (VCFs). However, bone cement may fail to fill both hemivertebra from the single needle. We assessed the radiographic and clinical outcome of hemivertebroplasty (HVP) and evaluated the factors that affect subsequent VCFs after HVP. METHODS: Fifty two patients who underwent HVP were reviewed. VCFs were identified based on clinical and radiological findings. The patients were grouped into two groups: 1) no subsequent VCFs, 2) subsequent VCFs. We evaluated the association between age, sex, body mass index (BMI) and bone mineral density (BMD) and subsequent VCFs. We also assessed the impact of location, type and grade of fracture, endplate fracture, burst fracture, bone cement volume on subsequent VCFs. We analyzed the compression ratio, wedge angle, kyphotic angle, and visual analogue scale (VAS) score in both groups. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in age, gender, BMI, and BMD between two groups. No significant difference was also found in pre-existing VCF, location, type and grading of fracture, endplate fracture, burst fracture, amount of bone cement, and radiological findings such as compression ratio, wedge angle, and kyphotic angle between two groups. The final mean VAS scores of patients with or without subsequent VCFs were 3.11 and 4.02, respectively. CONCLUSION: No major risk factors for the subsequent VCFs after HVP were found. However, we identified adjacent fractures, refractures, and remote fractures after HVP in chronological order. Therefore, long-term follow-up is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of HVP to osteoporotic VCFs.