ADAPTIVE MORPHOGENETIC MECHANISMSIN SCOLIOTIC SPINE STRUCTURES

Abstract

Objective. Analysis of morphological criteria of formation of secondary growth plate and vertebral body torsion in scoliosis.

Material and Methods. Specimens of vertebral body growth plates from convex and concave sides of deformity, intervertebral discs, and bone tissue were obtained during surgical correction of spinal deformity in 60 patients age 6–14 with II–IV grade idiopathic scoliosis. Structural components of the spine of children age 10–14 obtained from the Department of Forensic Medicine were used as controls. Specimens were analyzed using morphological, histochemical, and immunohistochemical methods and ultrastructural analysis.

Results. Proliferative activity of chondrocytes in the concave zone of the growth plate and in loose areolar tissue of the disc with isogenous groups and columnar structures, which repeat the stages of growth plate chondroblast differentiation, is specified as a secondary growth plate. Secondary growth zone is a biomechanical adaptive mechanism of congruency formation type. Second process of vertebral body torsion also may be characterized as adaptive mechanism. A change in the structural organization of the growth plate is observed at early stages of scoliotic spinal deformity (Grade II). Formation of columnar structures is disturbed; isogenic groups of cells are at the angle of 45° to the axis of the spine.

Conclusion. The formation of bone structures in accordance with the violation of the chondroblast architectonics in the growth plate is a morphological substrate of the torsion, and explains the interdependence or the priority of the torsion in the formation of wedge-shaped vertebrae.