Spontaneous osteoporotic vertebral refractures after percutaneous vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty in a patient with rheumatoid arthritis: a case report and literature review

Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic systemic autoimmune disease, and one of the main complications of RA is osteoporosis, which can cause osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCFs) that lead to low back pain and spinal deformation. For RA patients with OVCFs, the symptoms of osteoporosis are more severe, if surgical treatment is to be carried out, it is important to focus on the treatment of osteoporosis caused by RA. Case Description: We report a case of a 68-year-old woman with RA and successional osteoporotic vertebral body fractures treated by percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP) and percutaneous kyphoplasty (PKP). The patient experienced spontaneous multiple OVCFs on three occasions: in the course of 5 months, she underwent one PKP and two PVP operations with five cement-augmented vertebrae from the first to fifth lumbar vertebrae. The mean interval between each operation was 75 days (range, 2-3 months). The case report makes us look into the treatment of each stage and think about the reasons, we reviewed the literatures on advancements in the treatment of OVCFs caused by RA, so that we can choose a better method for similar patients in the future. Conclusions: For OVCFs secondary to RA without neurological damage, if we carry out surgical treatment, the systematic treatments, including RA treatment, pain management, brace treatment, and antiosteoporosis measures are important. among them, anti-osteoporosis treatment has the highest priority because of the reversible nature of osteoporosis caused by RA.