The purpose of a study by Nozawa et al. (A-13) was to evaluate the outcome of surgical repair of pars interarticularis defect by segmental wire fixation in young adults with lumbar spondylolysis. The authors found that segmental wire fixation historically has been successful in the treatment of nonathletes with spondylolysis, but no information existed on the results of this type of surgery in athletes. In a retrospective study, the authors found 20 subjects who had the surgery between 1993 and 2000. For these subjects, the data below represent the duration in months of follow-up care after the operation.

103 68 62 60 60 54 49 44 42 41 38 36 34 30 19 19 19 19 17 16 Source: Satoshi Nozawa, Katsuji Shimizu, Kei Miyamoto, and Mizuo Tanaka, “Repair of Pars Interarticularis Defect by Segmental Wire Fixation in Young Athletes with Spondylolysis,” American Journal of Sports Medicine, 31 (2003), 359–364.