Evaluation of screening for Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS)
Projectomschrijving
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AIS may lead to a serious social handicap and to dangerous heart and lung conditions, which only can be prevented by surgery. Early conservative treatment with a brace is supposed to reduce the need for surgery. Therefore screening of school children in order to detect AIS as early as possible is seen as "good practice". This preventive strategy, however, has so far not sufficiently been evaluated. A forum of experts has recommended to examine the usefulness of the brace with a randomised trial and the effectiveness of the prevention programme as a whole with a case-control study. This application is firstly concerned with the case-control study. The difference in exposure to screening will be established between a case group of AIS patients treated with surgery and a random sample from the source population. Secondly, data on factors between detection and health outcome will be collected from the case group and an extra group of AIS patients not needing surgery. Each group will consist of 140 participants. The inclusion will be realised in seven centres for scoliosis treatment and the relevant school health care departments. The exposure to screening will be established by interviews with the relevant school physicians and examination of school health care files; the clinical data by examination of clinical files and interviews with the patients and their orthopaedic surgeons.