Copyright
©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Teriparatide anabolic therapy as potential treatment of type II dens non-union fractures
Enrico Pola, Virginia Pambianco, Debora Colangelo, Virginia M Formica, Giovanni Autore, Spinal Unit, Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, “A. Gemelli” University Hospital, Catholic University of Rome, 00168 Rome, Italy
Luigi A Nasto, Centre for Spine Studies and Surgery, Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham NG7 2UH, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Pola E and Pambianco V contributed equally to this work; Pola E, Pambianco V and Nasto LA designed the research and analysed the data; Pola E, Formica VM, Autore G and Nasto LA conceived the study and participated in its coordination; Pola E, Pambianco V, Colangelo D and Nasto LA wrote the paper; all authors had read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This case report was exempt from the Institutional Review Board approval as per Catholic University of Rome guidelines.
Informed consent statement: The patient involved in this study gave her oral informed consent to be included in this study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interests to disclose about this study.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Enrico Pola, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Spinal Unit, Department of Orthopaedic and Traumatology, “A. Gemelli” University Hospital, Catholic University of Rome, L.go Agostino Gemelli 8, 00168 Rome, Italy. enrico.pola@rm.unicatt.it
Telephone: +39-340-2636062 Fax: +39-06-3051161
Received: March 31, 2016
Peer-review started: April 1, 2016
First decision: May 17, 2016
Revised: June 15, 2016
Accepted: July 14, 2016
Article in press: July 18, 2016
Published online: January 18, 2017
Peer-review started: April 1, 2016
First decision: May 17, 2016
Revised: June 15, 2016
Accepted: July 14, 2016
Article in press: July 18, 2016
Published online: January 18, 2017
Core Tip
Core tip: Odontoid fractures are common in elderly patients and treatment of these injuries remains challenging. Conservative management consists of rigid immobilization with collar or Halo vest. Delayed union or non-union is a common outcome in patients treated conservatively. For a symptomatic non-union, surgery may be the only option. In this case report we discuss the case of a patient with an odontoid fracture non-union successfully treated with systemic anabolic Teriparatide therapy. A complete fusion was achieved after 12 wk of treatment. Teriparatide therapy may have a role in fostering fusion of C2 fractures in elderly patients.