TOPLINE: 

Surgical treatment of scoliosis in children with cerebral palsy reduced the incidence of pneumonia requiring hospitalisation and the risk for pneumonia-related deaths compared with non-surgical management.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers analysed data from national registries in Finland to evaluate the incidence of pneumonia requiring hospitalization and pneumonia-related deaths in children with cerebral palsy and scoliosis born after 1987.
• They identified 474 children with cerebral palsy and scoliosis between 1996 and 2021, of whom 238 underwent surgery and 236 received non-surgical treatment.
• The mean follow-up duration was 22.8 ± 6.6 years for children treated surgically and 18.6 ± 8.1 years for those treated non-surgically.

TAKEAWAY:

• The incidence of pneumonia requiring hospitalisation significantly reduced from 175.5 to 121.5 hospitalizations per 1000 patient-years (P < .002) in children treated surgically vs those managed non-surgically.
• Pneumonia-related mortality was significantly greater in children treated non-surgically than in those treated surgically (8.9% vs 3.3%; P = .008).
• After adjusting for covariates, the risk for pneumonia-related deaths was 87.5% lower in surgically treated children (hazard ratio, 0.125; P < .001) than in children managed non-surgically.

IN PRACTICE:

"This investigation provides evidence for the first time of a reduction in the incidence of pneumonias and pneumonia-related deaths following surgical treatment of scoliosis in individuals with CP [cerebral palsy] and scoliosis," the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Matti Ahonen, Department of Paediatric Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Helsinki University Hospital in Helsinki, Finland. It was published online on November 26, 2025, in European Spine Journal.

LIMITATIONS:

The study lacked radiographs and data on the degree of movement disorder. The reasons for not undergoing surgery were unknown. The possibility remained that a small number of children not treated surgically had been considered ineligible for the procedure.

DISCLOSURES:

The authors reported having no relevant conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.