Familial idiopathic scoliosis, curvature of the spine that runs in families, but occurs for no known reason, affects about two to three percent of children in the western hemisphere. Although more girls are affected with the more severe curves, they do occur in boys as well. As a result most of the research and treatment on treating moderate to severe idiopathic scoliosis has been on girls. When research focuses on one sex, the other sex may not be served well by the treatments because of specific differences and parameters.
There has been a good bit of research into finding that genetics may play a role in children developing scoliosis. The the authors of this study wanted to look at a specific part of a chromosome, 17p, to see if they could find something that was related to scoliosis, using information from families where men had already undergone surgery for scoliosis correction.
Researchers studied 1,198 individuals from 202 families, each family had at least two children who had been diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis and 17 families had boys who had had surgery. The researchers took blood samples and extracted the DNA for examination.
The results of the DNA analysis showed that there was a consistent spot on chromosome 17 among the boys in the study who had familial idiopathic scoliosis. Research like this shows promise because as scientists begin to better understand who is at risk for certain disorders, research can lead to identification of the high risk groups, better treatment, or even prevention.