Retrospective Assessment of Adjacent Fracture Risks in Vertebroplasty, Kyphoplasty, and Bone‐Tumor Radiofrequency Ablation

INTRODUCTION: Percutaneous vertebral augmentation is widely used to provide symptom relief for patients with painful vertebral compression fractures (VCFs), but adjacent fractures remain a known complication. This retrospective study evaluated the risk of adjacent vertebral fractures following different percutaneous vertebral augmentation techniques. METHODS: A total of 985 encounters from 878 patients who underwent vertebroplasty, kyphoplasty, or bone tumor radiofrequency ablation (BT-RFA) with cement augmentation were included. The primary outcome was incidence of postprocedural adjacent fractures. Associations with demographic and clinical factors including age, sex, BMI, pathologic fractures, bone density, imaging guidance, and number of treated levels were assessed. Statistical analyses included a generalized linear mixed model and Cox proportional hazards models clustered by patient. RESULTS: Adjacent fracture occurred in 17.8% of encounters. BT-RFA was associated with a significantly lower risk of adjacent fractures compared with kyphoplasty (HR: 0.54, 95% CI:0.36-0.81; p = 0.003) and vertebroplasty (HR: 0.40, 95% CI: 0.27-0.60; p < 0.0001). Multilevel vertebral augmentations increased fracture risk by 1.42-fold, while pathologic fractures lowered the odds of adjacent fracture. No significant associations were found for age, BMI, sex, cement extravasation, or bone density. CONCLUSION: BT-RFA combined with cement augmentation significantly reduced the risk of adjacent fractures compared to kyphoplasty or vertebroplasty.