It is an ordeal for parents, a handicap for children and an enigma for doctors. 3% of children suffer from scoliosis – mostly girls – and in most cases the cause is unknown. For ages, health professionals have endeavored to limit the effects of these deformities.
The arsenal is wide but restrictive. “The recovery often involves learning new postures, physiotherapy sessions or, worse, wearing a corset. But “the development of screening tests and preventive measures should lead to a new therapeutic approach, more targeted, earlier and less invasive”, affirms Anne Jeanblanc, on the site of the magazine Point.
Brought together by the Yves Cotrel Foundation – Institut de France, the specialists recently took stock of the work in progress. The genetic trail is one of them. 10% of family forms are linked to mutations, of chromosome 5, in particular. The Lyon team behind this discovery is now working on other predictive genetic factors to correlate them with the different forms of familial scoliosis.
In Montreal, Valérie Murcil (CHU Sainte-Justine) looked into the relationship between hormones produced by adipose tissue, such as incretins, and adolescent scoliosis.
“In the same hospital, specifies the article in Le Point, Professor Florina Moldovan is studying the intervention of estrogens to explain the female predominance of the disease, its progression during puberty and the impact of feminizing hormones on bones and growth. spine. »
Finally, the perception of our body in space and right-left symmetry are the subject of research to understand the imbalances suffered by victims of scoliosis. This neurosensory pathway would lead to abnormalities of the inner ear canals.
