Kyphosis, lordosis and height velocity. What is the effect of rate of growth on the development of the sagittal parameters of the spine in normal children?

Adrian Gardner; Fiona Berryman; Paul Pynsent

doi:10.1007/s00586-026-10252-4

Kyphosis, lordosis and height velocity. What is the effect of rate of growth on the development of the sagittal parameters of the spine in normal children?

Adrian Gardner^*
, Fiona Berryman
, Paul Pynsent

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Purpose
To identify the effect of the rate of growth in standing height in the development of kyphosis and lordosis of normal children.

Methods
Analysis of the sagittal parameters of spinal shape from longitudinally collected ISIS2 surface topography measures were analysed alongside measures of standing height by comparing height velocity and the development of kyphosis and lordosis using linear mixed effects modelling techniques.

Results
There were 831 measures from 196 children (79 females) between 2010 and 2017 aged between 9 and 18 years of age. Height velocity was between 0 and 12 cm/yr. There was a decrease in both kyphosis and lordosis for females as height velocity increased from 0 to 4 cm/yr whereon the measure plateaued. For males, kyphosis showed less change over all values of height velocity whereas lordosis had some variation between 5 and 6 cm/yr. There was a statistically significant difference between the sexes for lordosis (p = 0.02) but not for kyphosis (p = 0.07).

Conclusion
The development of the sagittal shape of the spine is dependent on height velocity, and the effects of this differ between the sexes. This adds to the knowledge about the development of the shape of the spine along with informing future research into the aetiology of scoliosis.

Trial registration
National Research Ethics Service UK, NRES committee West MidlandsSouth Birmingham (11/H1207/10) awarded in 29/3/2011.

Original language	English
Number of pages	8
Journal	European Spine Journal
Early online date	8 Aug 2026
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-026-10252-4
Publication status	Published - 8 Aug 2026

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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10.1007/s00586-026-10252-4Licence: CC BY 4.0

Kyphosis, lordosis and height velocity. What is the effect of rate of growth on the development of the sagittal parameters of the spine in normal children
Copyright © The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Final published version, 1.66 MBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

@article{10e7dcd8b10b45c7b7a7343300359ad3,

title = "Kyphosis, lordosis and height velocity. What is the effect of rate of growth on the development of the sagittal parameters of the spine in normal children?",

abstract = "Purpose To identify the effect of the rate of growth in standing height in the development of kyphosis and lordosis of normal children. Methods Analysis of the sagittal parameters of spinal shape from longitudinally collected ISIS2 surface topography measures were analysed alongside measures of standing height by comparing height velocity and the development of kyphosis and lordosis using linear mixed effects modelling techniques. Results There were 831 measures from 196 children (79 females) between 2010 and 2017 aged between 9 and 18 years of age. Height velocity was between 0 and 12 cm/yr. There was a decrease in both kyphosis and lordosis for females as height velocity increased from 0 to 4 cm/yr whereon the measure plateaued. For males, kyphosis showed less change over all values of height velocity whereas lordosis had some variation between 5 and 6 cm/yr. There was a statistically significant difference between the sexes for lordosis (p = 0.02) but not for kyphosis (p = 0.07). Conclusion The development of the sagittal shape of the spine is dependent on height velocity, and the effects of this differ between the sexes. This adds to the knowledge about the development of the shape of the spine along with informing future research into the aetiology of scoliosis. Trial registration National Research Ethics Service UK, NRES committee West MidlandsSouth Birmingham (11/H1207/10) awarded in 29/3/2011.",

author = "Adrian Gardner and Fiona Berryman and Paul Pynsent",

note = "Copyright {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article{\textquoteright}s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article{\textquoteright}s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.",

year = "2026",

month = aug,

day = "8",

doi = "10.1007/s00586-026-10252-4",

language = "English",

journal = "European Spine Journal",