New Procedure Benefits Children with Congenital Scoliosis
Local surgeon performs rare procedure
2007
(LAS VEGAS)— Jonathan Camp, MD, a pediatric spine surgeon at Children’s Bone and Spine Surgery, recently began utilizing his knowledge and experience to perform a new surgical procedure, pedical subtraction osteotomoy—a new and innovative procedure to treat rigid scoliosis in children and adults.
Camp has used the procedure to treat children and adolescents born with congenital scoliosis; a spinal deformity children are born with that typically develops in utero during the first trimester when bones and vertebrae form.
Most often, the condition is treated with an early operative fusion of the spine. According to Camp, this is the traditional mainstay of surgical treatment to arrest the future progression of the deformity.
However, Camp worked with two children, each born with a significant curve and circumferential fusion of the spine. Both had undergone previous surgical treatments from another surgeon, but the condition continued to progress.
Rather than have the two children undergo the traditional options, which are either wait and watch or to correct the condition with two separate procedures—incisions in the anterior followed by a posterior resection of the fused and deformed bone of the spine—Camp opted to perform something different.
Both children were corrected with a single procedure, the pedical subtraction osteotomy, wherein both the anterior and posterior bone is safely removed in one operative procedure performed from the back.
“The correction is more precise with less blood loss,” said Camp. “There is also less time spent in the hospital than with the other more traditional scoliosis procedures.”
According to Camp, he is one of a few pediatric spine surgeons in the nation utilizing this procedure, which, in experienced hands, is safer than the traditional anterior-posterior procedure often used. In fact, he believes the two procedures he recently performed are some of the first in Southern Nevada to treat scoliosis in this age group
“The surgery is done only by the most experienced spine surgeons to correct rigid spinal deformity,” he said. “These two cases were particularly challenging because both children had been fused front and back in early childhood.” He learned this procedure while on sabbatical in 2006 with world renowned spinal surgeon Dr. Larry Lenke, who practices in St. Louis.
Camp reports that both patients have a nearly complete correction of previous fused spine, minimal blood loss and short hospital stay.
Jonathan Camp, MD, is a pediatric spine surgeon at Children’s Bone and Spine Surgery, at 1525 E. Windmill Lane, Ste. 201 and 653 N. Town Center, Ste. 208. With more than 30 years of experience in pediatric spine focused on scoliosis, he is certified with the American Board of Orthopedic Surgeons and is a member of numerous prestigious organizations, including the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, Pediatric Orthopedic Society and the Nevada Medical Association. Camp is a fellow in the Scoliosis Research Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics (Orthopedic Subsection). For more information call (702) 434-6920 or go to www.cbsortho.com.