Prevention and treatment of osteoporosis is one of the first steps in managing VCFs. Postmenopausal women with osteoporosis should be treated with 1500 mg calcium and 400 IU vitamin D daily.
16,21 Serum testosterone should be tested in men with compression fractures to rule out hypogonadism.
16,21 Osteomalacia should be suspected if alkaline phosphatase level is elevated. Cigarette smoking should be discouraged, and alcohol should only be consumed in moderation.
21 A daily weight-bearing exercise program should be recommended.
16 Newer treatment options like bisphonates have been shown to reduce the risk of fractures.
15,21 In randomized clinical trials, alendronate has been found to reduce the risk of vertebral fractures by 50% in postmenopausal women.
3 Other agents with clinical evidence of efficacy include raloxifene, parathormone, and calcitonin.
39Nonsurgical Treatment
Nonsurgical management is one of the preferred approaches for treatment of VCFs.
18,28 Conservative management includes a short period of bed rest followed by gradual mobilization with external orthoses.
39 Since VCFs are flexion-compression injuries, a hyperextension brace is used. These braces are usually beneficial for the first few months, until the pain resolves. Although younger patients tolerate bracing well, elderly patients generally do not,
28 because of increased pain with bracing. Thus, elderly patients tend to require more bed rest. Immobility predisposes patients to venous thrombosis and life-threatening complications such as pulmonary embolism. It can also lead to pressure ulcers, pulmonary complications, urinary tract infections, and progressive deconditioning. In addition, it has been reported that bone mineral density decreases 0.25% to 1.00% per week in patients who are on bed rest.
23,40 To reduce pain and thus promote early mobilization with conservative management, appropriate analgesics should be prescribed. Narcotics should be reserved for patients who receive inadequate relief from regular analgesics. A major concern with narcotics is physical dependence and other adverse effects, like gastrointestinal dysmotility and cognitive deficits. Physical therapy and rehabilitation are also important factors that expedite healing.
For patients with pathologic compression fractures, a course of radiotherapy may be indicated if the tumor is radiosensitive. Radiotherapy provided pain relief in approximately 50% of patients with VCFs due to myeloma or prostate or breast cancer.
41,42Operative Management
Operative management of VCFs has gained popularity, as it produces rapid, significant, and sustained improvements in back pain, function, and quality of life.
43 Surgical intervention is indicated for those patients with intractable back pain failing conservative therapy or where there is evidence of impending or existing neurologic deficit, or where the spinal deformity is extremely severe.
25,28 However, operative management of elderly patients does carry increased risk because of comorbidities.
16,25There are several surgical options for the management of painful osteoporotic fractures. Vertebral augmentation through minimally invasive techniques such as kyphoplasty and percutaneous vertebroplasty are among the most popular.
25,31 Other methods include use of the Osseo-Fix Spinal Fracture Reduction System (AlphaTec Spine; Carlsbad, CA) and internal bracing. More invasive techniques, such as anterior and posterior decompression and stabilization with placement of screws, plates, cages, and rods are also available. These procedures, however, are challenging because it is difficult to achieve adequate fixation in osteoporotic bone.
23,25Percutaneous vertebroplasty is one of the favored methods of treating painful VCFs.
25 It encompasses augmentation of the vertebral body by injection of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA).
25 This method has been successful in treating pain, even eliminating the need for pain medication in some cases. Short-term results indicated that 75% to 100% of patients can have good to moderate pain relief after vertebroplasty,
1,6 which also increases functional ability by stabilizing the fracture and preventing further vertebral collapse.
44,45 Vertebroplasty is most effective in compression fractures less than 6 months old. Its objective is not to restore the height of the vertebral body; in static fractures the average increase in anterior body height is only 2.5 mm. Contraindications of this procedure include infection of the vertebral body, coagulopathy, bone fragment retropulsion, and allergy to any of the substances used during the procedure, including PMMA cement and sometimes contrast agent. A number of potential serious complications of intraosseous injection of bone cement have been reported in the literature. One such complication is cement leakage, which ranged from 3% to 75%.
22 Leakage into the spinal canal may result in neurologic deficit, such as radiculopathy or spinal cord compression. In addition, there was an increased incidence of new VCFs in the adjacent segments after vertebral body augmentation procedures.
22 This is currently thought to be because of the increased stiffness of the treated vertebra compared to the adjacent vertebral bodies.
Despite the early encouraging results of vertebroplasty for VCFs, in 2009 Buchbinder et al found that vertebroplasty offered no benefit to patients with fresh and painful VCFs.
46 In this placebo-controlled study, researchers performed sham surgery, which included percutaneous insertion of the needle and opening the PMMA-monomer mixture to release the odor present during the real operation.
46 MRI in 78 patients confirmed that vertebral compression fractures had been treated, and no improvement in symptoms was observed in patients who received vertebroplasty. Patients in both groups had similar, significant reductions in overall pain and similar improvement in physical functioning, quality of life, and perceived recovery.
46 A similar study also showed that vertebroplasty and a sham procedure had equivalent results.
47… because of increased pain with bracing. … elderly patients tend to require more bed rest. Immobility predisposes patients to venous thrombosis and life-threatening complications …
Another option for vertebral body augmentation is kyphoplasty. This involves placement of an inflatable balloon tamp in the fractured vertebral body.
27 The balloon is inflated using a contrast agent so that position and inflation can be confirmed with image-intensified fluoroscopy. The inflation creates a cavity that can later be filled with PMMA or other types of bone cement. The risks associated with this procedure are similar to those of percutaneous vertebroplasty, however lower rates of cement leakage into the spinal canal have been reported.
43 Kyphoplasty offers the potential for reversing spinal deformities: height restoration can be improved postoperatively by 50% to 70%, with a segmental kyphosis improvement of 6° to 10°.
26,48 Thus, kyphoplasty has the potential to prevent the pulmonary and gastrointestinal complications associated with severe kyphosis.
48 Kyphoplasty is most successful at restoring the height of the fractured vertebral body if it is performed within 3 months of the occurence of fracture or onset of pain.
22,23,43,49,50 Short-term results show that 85% to 100% of patients have good to moderate pain relief.
26,48 Wardlaw et al found that kyphoplasty had improved functional recovery compared with nonsurgical treatment.
51 Contraindications of kyphoplasty are similar to those of percutaneous vertebroplasty and include infection of the vertebral body, coagulopathy, bone fragment retropulsion, and allergy to any of the substances used during the procedure, including cement and contrast agent.
24,33,52 Garfin et al found that short-term complications from this procedure were related to cement extravasation and damage from heat and pressure on the spinal cord and nerve roots.
43New techniques have been developed to minimize the risks of complications from kyphoplasty. Vesselplasty was developed in 2009 to decrease the rate of cement leakage: the inflatable balloon is left in the patient and filled with cement, thus reducing the risk of cement leakage.
53 Alternatives to PMMA were also explored. An expandable polymer bone tamp, Sky Bone Expander (Disc-O-Tech Medical Technologies, Ltd; Herzliya, Israel), appeared to have good initial results.
54 Cortoss (Orthovita; Malvern, PA), a bioactive, injectable, nonresorbable composite consisting of highly cross-linked resins and reinforcing bioactive glass fibers, was also found to have a more physiologic load transfer, and patients treated with Cortoss were less likely to be hospitalized for new vertebral compression fractures.
55