Double Pedicle Screw Instrumentation in the Osteoporotic Spine
Bibliographic record
Abstract
STUDY DESIGN: A biomechanical feasibility test. OBJECTIVE: To assess the overall feasibility, safety, and mechanical effectiveness of an intrapedicular double-screw construct in the thoracolumbar spine. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: The bony purchase of the pedicle screw fixation is often not strong enough in elderly patients with osteoporosis. Our hypothesis was that the elliptical cross-section of the pedicle would allow the insertion of 2 smaller diameter pedicle screws resulting in a bony purchase superior to the standard single-screw technique. METHODS: Thirty-six double-screw constructs (5mm diameter AOUSS and 5 mm Schanz screw) and 36 standard single pedicle screws (6mm diameter AOUSS screw) were placed. Screw pullout, multiaxial flexibility, and axial failure load testing was performed. RESULTS: Visual inspection, palpation, and radiograph confirmed that there were no pedicle breaches. In the double-screw group, all but 2 constructs had ideal direction. Pullout strength of the double-screw construct was no different than that of the single-screw construct. However, stiffness increased considerably in all testing modes. Axial load to failure, adjusted for bone mineral density, and dimensional variation, also increased. All differences were statistically significant except for axial rotation that was only marginally significant. CONCLUSIONS: The double-screw construct appears feasible and safe in the thoracolumbar spine. In this study, the new technique demonstrates a mechanical advantage over the standard single-screw technique. Further in vitro cadaveric safety studies with better adapted instrumentation are needed before the technique can be widely recommended.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".