surgical outcomes and correlation odi and asia scores in patients with thoracolumbar and lumbar burst fractures

background and purpose: decision-making process in thoracolumbar and lumbar burst fracture (tlbf) patients with thoracolumbar injury severity and classification score (tlics) > 4 is remained controversial. on the other hand, the question is whether that the oswestry disability index (odi) can be use to assess to clinical outcomes in these patients . we aimed to study the correlation between the odi and american spinal injury association (asia) impairment scale in these patients and evaluation of surgical outcome. methods: this was a prospective study. the tlics were determined and tlics > 4 was included. the nerve injury was assessed according to sensory scores and motors scores of the using asia scale at pre- and postoperative. it was also odi calculated at last follow-up. in addition, correlation between asia and odi was evaluated at last follow-up. results : fifty eight patients (20.7% female) who underwent spinal surgery for tlbf with a minimum follow up of 2 years were studied. the mean age was 30.7 ± 8.7 (24 to 65) years. automobile accident was the predominant mode of injury. patients were followed for 25 months on average (24 – 43 months). asia sensory scores and motor scores were improved significantly at last follow-up (p < 0.001). no patient experienced neurological worsening during the follow-up period. the mean odi were 29.7 (sd= 4.9) at last follow-up. correlation test showed significant correlations among the odi and the asia sensory scores (r = 0.74, p < 0.02) and motor scores (r = 0.78, p < 0.01) at last follow-up assessment. conclusion : the findings confirm that for tlics > 4 surgical outcome is acceptable. it also shows that the odi and the asia scores have a strong correlation in measuring disability in patients with tlbf after at least 2 year follow-up.