Does scoliosis affect different ethnic groups?

Answer 1

Hi

There is a good discussion about this on the ScoliosisNutty Yahoo Group, I have posted a link for you - the answers and different family lines are interesting. I don't think that Scoliosis affects different ethnic groups, certainly never come across any white papers about this, however, they have only just located a gene (CHD7) that they "think" may lead to Scoliosis - most causes are "idiopathic" meaning unknown, therefore, if they are unsure of where the Scoliosis comes from then relating it to ethnic groups would be hard.

STUDY DESIGN: Analysis of the estrogen receptor gene of girls with idiopathic scoliosis. OBJECTIVES: To determine whether estrogen receptor gene polymorphisms

correlate with curve severity of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. SUMMARY OF

BACKGROUND DATA: Studies suggest that idiopathic scoliosis is a familial condition and that curve progression is related to genetically determined factors, such as skeletal and sexual growth.

METHODS: A total of 304 girls with idiopathic scoliosis were followed until growth maturation. Height, arm span, menarcheal age, and age at growth maturation were recorded, and curve severity was measured using Cobb's method. The estrogen receptor gene, which contains polymorphic PvuII and XbaI sites, was amplified from lymphocyte deoxyribonucleic acid by polymerase chain reaction.

RESULTS: The mean maximum Cobb measurements for patients with genotypes XX and Xx were greater than for those with genotype xx (P = 0.002). The risk of curve progression, defined as progression of >5 degrees from initial evaluation, was higher with genotype Xx than with xx (P = 0.03). Patients with genotypes XX and Xx had a significantly higher risk for operative treatment than those with genotype xx (21.4%, 24.7% vs. 7.6%, P< 0.001). Growth examination around the time of the growth spurt revealed that the XbaI site polymorphism was also related to the age of growth maturation. The frequency of patients with growth maturation at >or=16 years was higher for genotypes XX and Xx than for genotype xx (33.3%, 29.9% vs. 16.8%, P= 0.013).

CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that the XbaI site polymorphism is associated with curve severity. DNA analysis may predict curve progression.

Further study of 540 patients - October 2006 - No association between the two ESR1 SNPs and the occurrence of AIS by both genotype and haplotype analysis could be established, suggesting that both SNPs were not predisposition alleles for AIS. AIS patients with different genotypes showed no difference in the maximum Cobb angle. No association was found between the genotype and anthropometric measurements in AIS patients.

Concluding that - he previously reported association with curve severity could not be replicated in our large series of Chinese AIS patients. The current study also did not show any association of the 2 SNPs with increased risk of having AIS.