Opinion Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Sep 18, 2020; 11(9): 364-379
Published online Sep 18, 2020. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v11.i9.364
Screening for scoliosis - New recommendations, old dilemmas, no straight solutions
Maciej Płaszewski, Weronika Grantham, Ejgil Jespersen
Maciej Płaszewski, Ejgil Jespersen, Department of Rehabilitation in Biała Podlaska, Józef Piłsudski University of Physical Education, Biała Podlaska 21-500, Poland
Weronika Grantham, Faculty of Physical Education and Health in Biała Podlaska, Józef Piłsudski University of Physical Education, Biała Podlaska 21-500, Poland
Author contributions: Płaszewski M conceptualized the review, with substantial contributions from Grantham W and Jespersen E. He carried out the analysis and drafted the manuscript; Grantham W and Jespersen E made critical revisions related to important intellectual content of the manuscript. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript as submitted.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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/
Corresponding author: Maciej Płaszewski, MSc, PhD, Associate Professor, Chairman, Physiotherapist, Department of Rehabilitation in Biała Podlaska, Józef Piłsudski University of Physical Education, Akademicka 2, Biała Podlaska 21-500, Poland. plaszewski@wp.pl
Received: April 27, 2020
Peer-review started: April 27, 2020
First decision: May 15, 2020
Revised: May 29, 2020
Accepted: September 1, 2020
Article in press: September 1, 2020
Published online: September 18, 2020
Core Tip

Core Tip: New and updated, but still discrepant, recommendations on screening for scoliosis have been produced in recent years. The growing differences regard standards of recommendation development and principles of screening. The advocates tend to promote possible specific benefits from early treatment implemented thanks to screening testing, whilst the opponents tend to apply contemporary generic principles of screening programmes as preventive services, and the criteria of trustworthy guideline development, underlining possible harms following overdetection, stigmatisation and unnecessary treatment. It seems that clinical and person-oriented, rather than school-based, traditional screening procedures, have been emerging as solutions for the future.