CASE REPORT article
Front. Surg.
Sec. Orthopedic Surgery
Case report: Vertebral fracture and spinal cord compression after removal of pedicle screws in PD patients: Case report and literature review
Provisionally accepted
- 1Zhejiang University School of Medicine Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Hangzhou, China
- 2Hangzhou Ninth People's Hospital, Hangzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Introduction: Pedicle screws are used in spinal surgery and have yielded favorable postoperative outcomes. Despite this, the optimal timing for their removal remains controversial. This study presents a case report of a patient with Parkinson’s disease who experienced rapid vertebral fracture and spinal cord compression after pedicle screw removal. We outlined the patient’s management, and follow up and discuss consideration for screw removal. Case presentation: A 58-year-old woman with an 8-year history of Parkinson’s disease underwent lumbar surgery (L4-L5 oblique lumbar interbody fusion, L5-S1 transverse lumbar interbody fusion, and T12-L4 posterolateral lumbar fusion), including pedicle screw implantation at a local hospital 3 years prior for degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis and lumbar spinal stenosis. She presented with lower back pain and bilateral lower limb numbness for 7 months. The patient was diagnosed with failed back surgery syndrome and underwent posterior fixation removal, interbody fusion cage removal, decompression, fusion with bone grafting, and new internal fixation (L4-S2). However, 3 months postoperatively, the lower back pain recurred and worsened by the fourth month, accompanied by lower limb weakness. Subsequently, the patient was diagnosed with L2 and L3 vertebral fractures and spinal cord injury. Results: With appropriate treatment including total L2 laminectomy with decompression, intertransverse bone grafting, L2 vertebroplasty, pedicle screw-rod fixation (T11-S2), and T11 screw tract augmentation, the patient exhibited a satisfactory prognosis at the 2-year follow-up.
Keywords: Pedicle screw, Failed Back Surgery Syndrome, Screw removal, case report, vertebral fracture, Spinal Cord Compression, spinal surgery
Received: 22 Aug 2025; Accepted: 13 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wen, Su, Guo, Fan, Fang, Chen and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Wenbin Xu, xuwenbin@zju.edu.cn
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.