Human upright spinopelvic alignment and the etio-pathogenesis of idiopathic scoliosis

Idiopathic scoliosis is a classic and intriguing orthopedic disorder in which the spine, usually during the pubertal growth spurt, collapses into a three-dimensional deformity without any known cause. Despite many anatomical similarities between the human spine and other spines in nature, idiopathic scoliosis is not found in other vertebrates. The unique human upright spinopelvic alignment, that implies an essentially different biomechanical loading condition compared to other vertebrates, has implications for rotational stability and plays an important role in the initiation and progression of the rotatory deformity that idiopathic scoliosis actually is. This concept of idiopathic scoliosis as a rotatory instability of the spine is further investigated in this thesis