In Duchenne, the vital capacity has usually dropped to 50 percent of expected by age 11, and continues to drop every year thereafter. Surgeons agree that, below 20 percent, surgery may be too risky. Many surgeons prefer to operate when vital capacity reaches 35 percent to 40 percent. At this point, it's usually late enough in the development of the curve to determine if the scoliosis will progress, but still early enough in the respiratory decline to permit safe surgery. He had excellent results, and that made a difference to me.
Luque rods hold the spine in place while the vertebrae fuse.
Procedures have changed significantly since the Harrington system was designed in 1962. Surgery was followed by immobilization in a plaster body cast for many months, to allow the vertebrae to fuse together. In the late 1970s, Dr. Eduardo Luque, an orthopedic surgeon in Mexico specializing in neuromuscular diseases, developed the segmental stabilization system. In Luque's system, the rods were wired to each of the vertebrae. They were bent to more accurately model the proper curvature of the back, and the vertebrae were treated to promote faster fusion.