However, performing fusion techniques, without regard to graft materials or methods, extend the operating time and in- crease the blood loss. Particularly in posterolateral fusion, an extensive surgical soft tissue stripping would be required to pre- pare the bed for the graft, and thus the aforementioned disad- vantages become more apparent. In addition, fusion methods result in a permanent loss of the segmental motion and long- term adjacent level disease1,2,6,26). Therefore, the spinal fusion has many drawbacks. In the current study, we addressed the se- rious question of whether a simultaneous fusion would be nec- essary when treating thoracolumbar burst fractures with a pos- terior pedicle screw fixation. There are some limitations in our study. The number of pa- tients included in this retrospective study may be too small for a proper statistical analysis. In addition, the follow-up period was relatively shorter as compared with previous studies. Hence- forth, further long term follow-up studies in a lager patient population are warranted to generalize our results. CONCLUSION In this study, we retrospectively compared the radiological and clinical outcomes between the two groups of patients who underwnet posterior pedicle screw fixation with or without posterolateral fusion for the treatment of thoracolumbar burst fractures. The present study demonstrated that there were no significant differences in the kyphosis correction and clinical outcomes between the two groups. Posterior pedicle screw fixa- tion alone yielded satisfactory results that are equivalent to those of supplemented with posterolateral fusion. Futhermore, posterolateral fusion has many disadvantages such as perma- nent loss of segmental motion, long-term adjacent level disease and technique-related complications (i.e., blood loss, operating time, hospitalization period, etc.). 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