Letter to the editor concerning “Imbalanced development of anterior and posterior thorax is a causative factor triggering scoliosis” by Chen et?al., Journal of Orthopaedic Translation, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jot.2018.12.001

摘要

With great interest, we have read “Imbalanced development ofanterior and posterior thorax is a causative factor triggering scoliosis” byChen et al. [1] and would like to compliment the authors on their article.In this article, the authors described a theory about the origin of idio-pathicscoliosis,a topic thathas receivedmuch interestovera long periodof time. Patients with scoliosis were found to have a reduced thoracicanteroposterior length ratio, resulting from the relatively longer thoracicvertebra and relatively shorter sternum. In addition, artificially reducingthe thoracic anteroposterior length ratio by surgically destroying thesternal growth plates induces scoliosis in quadrupedal mice and even amore increased scoliosis curvature in bipedal mice. Consistently, micewith deficiency of fibroblast growth factor receptor 3, which had severescoliosis, had a reduced thoracic anteroposterior length ratio. The au-thors interpreted these findings as an imbalanced growth between thethoracic vertebral column and the sternum that may also play a role inthe pathogenesis of idiopathic scoliosis. Their hypothesis was that thegradually reduced relative length of the sternum induced scoliosis.