Pre- and postoperative quality of life in patients treated for scoliosis

There have been few prospective reports on quality of life in patients treated surgically for scoliosis. We compared patients with idiopathic, congenital, and neuromuscular scoliosis.

Data on 9- to 20-year-old patients were collected from the SweSpine registry. EQ-5D and (for a subset) SRS-22r were assessed preoperatively and after 1 and 2 years.

211 patients had preoperative data: 168 with idiopathic, 11 with congenital, and 32 with neuromuscular scoliosis. Of the total, 158 patients responded to the 1-year follow-up and 149 responded to the 2-year follow-up. Preoperatively, the mean (SE) EQ-5D index was 0.76 (0.02) in the idiopathic group, 0.74 (0.07) in the congenital group, and 0.10 (0.06) in the neuromuscular group, and the SRS-22r index was 3.8 (0.1) in the idiopathic group, 4.0 (0.3) in the congenital group, and 3.3 (0.2) in the neuromuscular group. The mean EQ-5D increased by 0.06 points at 2 years in the idiopathic group, by 0.16 points in the congenital group, and by 0.15 points in the neuromuscular group. The mean SRS-22r index increased by 0.4 points at 2 years in the idiopathic group, by 0.4 points in the congenital group, and by 0.5 points in the neuromuscular group. The changes were statistically significant, with the exception of the congenital group. The number of patients who sustained at least 1 complication was 13 in the idiopathic group, 2 in the congenital group, and 9 in the neuromuscular group (p = 0.003).

The general quality of life in the idiopathic and neuromuscular group improved after surgery.