Status and progress of school screening for adolescent scoliosis / 中华骨科杂志

ABSTRACT

Scoliosis is one of the common diseases in adolescents. It can rapidly progress during the peak growth period. Scoliosis school screening (SSS) is the main way for early detection and treatment of this disease. The SSS project began in the 1960s and was gradually promoted from the United States to the world. However, some problems were gradually exposed during the implementation of the project, such as the high false positive rate of screening methods, potential radiation damage, the uncertainty of the potency ratio of screening and the lack of evidence-based medical evidence of the effectiveness of high-level conservative treatment, which led to many European and American countries stopping the implementation of SSS. However, with the progress of research related to diagnosis and treatment of scoliosis, based on the latest evidence-based medical evidence assessment, the United States Preventive Medicine Task Force again adjusted the recommendation level of SSS to "no recommendation, no objection" in 2018. In recent years, SSS has gradually received extensive attention from the Chinese government and society. Five national ministries and commissions also issued a document in 2021 to include scoliosis in the monitoring of common diseases among students. However, the implementation of the project should also refer to the effectiveness criteria of disease screening recommended by the World Health Organization. In the future, with the improvement of the accuracy of scoliosis screening methods, the development of multi-mode screening such as artificial intelligence, the emergence of non-radiation detection technology and the improvement of the effectiveness of conservative treatment of mild and moderate scoliosis, the long-term and large-scale implementation of SSS project and the early prevention and control of scoliosis will be possible to truly achieve.