Morphometric analysis of dry human lumbar vertebrae

Background & Aims: With change of posture from quadrupeds to bipeds, a shift of body weight from appendicular skeleton to the
axial skeleton (spine) occurs. As a result, various changes in the spine took place and the human spine became more prone to diseases
such as scoliosis, spondylolisthesis, osteoporosis of vertebrae and many more. Over the past decade, a number of corrective surgeries
have been designed but trans-pedicular screw fixation in spondylosyndesis remains the gold standard for the correcting spinal
deformities. Hence, the current study was designed to frame out the morphometric measurements of the pedicle of lumbar vertebrae so
that guidelines can be delineated for the manufacturers of lumbar screw implants.
Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 100 lumbar vertebrae of unknown age and
sex obtained from the Department of Anatomy Govt. Medical College (GMC) Jammu. All the measurements were taken twice on both
right and left side with the help of sliding vernier calipers, averaged out and then tabulated in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
Results: The dimensions of the pedicle height of the lumbar vertebrae on the right side were recorded to be from 20.05 to 10.32mm
with mean of 13.83±2.08mm. However, mean of the pedicle height on left side was 13.71± 2.09mm with the range of 20.01 to 10.22mm
with statistically significant p- value of 0.025. Further, the range of pedicular width of lumbar vertebrae on the right side was 17.71 to
5.38mm with a mean of 10.8±2.73mm and on left side was from 17.69 to 5.37 mm with mean of 9.77±2.57 mm with statistically
significant p value of 0.037. The mean inter-pedicular distance of lumbar vertebrae was 21.73±2.62mm with a range of 11-28mm.
Conclusions: The results of the present study concluded that mean pedicular width and mean pedicular height are more on right side
and mean inter- pedicular distance was 21.73±2.62mm. Hence, it was concluded that measurements should be taken before designing
the lumbar screws for North Indian population