The success of a novel scoliosis surgery hinges on when growth spurts hit. Can new tools better predict them?
Mia Schloegel was 11 when they found the curve in her spine.
She was at her yearly pediatrician’s visit when her uncle — also her doctor — had her lean over, in a standard childhood check for scoliosis. “He noticed I had kind of a hump on one side and not the other,” said Schloegel, a sign of the rib cage rotation that often occurs when the spine is curved side-to-side. At her uncle’s urging, she and her mother went to get an X-ray at a Kansas City hospital that same day.
