Three girls received spinal-halo-gravity traction at the same time at Children’s National prior to surgery for acute idiopathic scoliosis.

Washington, D.C.’s ABC affiliate, WJLA, recently featured a story about three girls who received treatment for acute idiopathic scoliosis through the Children’s National Spinal Fusion Surgical Home, a comprehensive and effective program that has demonstrated reductions in pain medication usage and medical stays following posterior spinal fusion surgery.

All three girls had extremely severe curvatures of the spine requiring a month long inpatient stay for spinal halo-gravity traction prior to surgical intervention. Spinal curves severe enough to require traction are rare, and often impede a child’s quality of life just as severely – eating, breathing and moving are difficult. Given the long hospital stay required and the challenges of asking a child to stay in a traction frame 23 hours out of every day, the orthopaedic surgery team tries to coordinate cases so that when possible, patients can support each other throughout the process. This was the first time, however, that the team had three traction patients on similar trajectories on the unit at the same time.

Spinal halo-gravity traction can reduce the degree of surgical intervention necessary by accomplishing some pre-operative gradual straightening of the spine prior to spinal fusion procedures. For severe spinal deformities this has been shown to improve the safety and effectiveness of the final surgical procedure.