MUSCLE PATHOLOGY IN IDIOPATHIC SCOLIOSIS

  • 1 January 1979
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 15  (11) , 917-924
Abstract
Muscles from patients with scoliosis were studied to determine the possible relationship between neuromuscular disease and idiopathic scoliosis. Biopsies taken from the paraspinal musculature, the gluteus maximus and other sites were examined and compared with control specimens taken from patients undergoing spinal surgery for other disorders. Morphological and morphometric examinations by light microscopy and EM revealed a wide range of pathological changes and an alteration in the normal distribution of fiber types in most muscles. Changes were mainly nonspecific, but one unusual feature in idiopathic scoliosis not in the other types of scoliosis consisted of type I fiber atrophy in paraspinal and deltoid muscles of the concave side. Ca increase was found in the concave side paraspinal muscle, the side of the maximum morphological changes. the localized muscle changes, which are disease and not deformity related, suggest that idiopathic scoliosis is a separate disease entity and that the CNS may be involved in its genesis.

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