Spondylolisthesis in Young Patients in a Large National Cohort: Reoperation Rate Depends on Surgical Approach.

Background: The current literature investigating surgical treatments for lumbar spondylolisthesis in adolescent patients is limited by small sample sizes. There are high reoperation rates, and posterior interbody fusion has not been reported to help. The current study aimed to utilize a nationwide database to investigate outcomes of spinal fusion for spondylolisthesis in young patients.

Methods: The PearlDiver database was queried for patients <21 years old who had undergone lumbar spinal fusion for spondylolisthesis between 2010 and 2020. Patients were divided into 4 cohorts based on surgical approach: (1) posterior spinal fusion with posterior instrumentation (PSF), (2) posterior spinal fusion with posterior instrumentation plus interbody (PSF+I), (3) anterior spinal fusion without posterior instrumentation (ASF), and (4) anterior spinal fusion plus posterior instrumentation (A+PSF). Patients with <2 years of follow-up were excluded. The primary outcome was reoperation.

Results: Of 33,945 patients with spondylolisthesis, 578 (1.7%) underwent lumbar spinal fusion: 236 (40.8%) had PSF, 219 (37.9%) had PSF+I, 66 (11.4%) had ASF, and 57 (9.9%) had A+PSF. The mean age was 16.5 ± 1.1 years, and the mean follow-up was 5.4 ± 2.9 years. A higher percentage of girls underwent surgery compared with boys (2.0% versus 1.4%). Survival analysis using all-cause reoperation as the end point demonstrated an overall 5-year reoperation-free survival rate of 85.5% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 82.5% to 88.6%). The overall reoperation rate within 5 years was significantly different depending on the approach, with A+PSF being the lowest at 7.0% (PSF = 11.9%, PSF+I = 10.5%, and ASF = 31.8%).

Conclusions: This is the largest reported series of spondylolisthesis surgery in young people. The lowest rate of revisions within 5 years was for a combined approach of A+PSF. The 5-year risk of reoperation of 31.8% for a stand-alone ASF appeared to be unacceptably high compared with other approaches, and was over 4 times higher than A+PSF (7.0%). Consistent with previous clinical series, the addition of an interbody fusion to a PSF did not decrease the reoperation rate and did not appear to offer any advantages to a PSF alone.

Level of evidence: Therapeutic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.