Very nice doctor who speaks many languages. Excellent staff. Thank you!
- Palwasha Ali
not image of actual patient
What is it?
A compression fracture or a break in one of your vertebra can be painful. It can also make it difficult to move freely. That’s because a break can result in bone fragments rubbing against each other.
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Surgery can help treat such fractures. For example, kyphoplasty and vertebroplasty are minimally invasive procedures that are often performed together. Usually, they can be done without a hospital stay.
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In vertebroplasty, a doctor injects a cement mixture into the bone to give it strength.
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Kyphoplasty makes room for the mixture. In this procedure, a doctor inserts and inflates a balloon to create an opening for the mixture. The balloon is removed after the cement is injected. Kyphoplasty is sometimes referred to as balloon vertebroplasty.
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Both of these procedures are more likely to be successful if done within two months of a fracture diagnosis. They can help relieve pain and improve mobility when other measures fail to provide relief.
Conditions it treats
These procedures can be effective in treating people whose bones are weakened by cancer or whose vertebrae collapse due to osteoporosis, a disease that causes loss of bone density.
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Kyphoplasty and vertebroplasty are used to mend recent fractures. However, they aren’t used as a preventive technique, even for osteoporosis. As well, they’re usually not advised for herniated disks, back arthritis, or curvature of the spine due to scoliosis.
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These two procedures haven’t been extensively tested in younger, otherwise healthy people. The long-term effects of the bone cement aren’t known, so these procedures are generally reserved for older people.
