Smits AJ, et al. - Authors aimed to assess the health-related quality of life (QOL), safety and radiologic parameters following thoracoscopic treatment of traumatic thoracolumbar fractures using a distractible cage in subjects without spinal cord injury (SCI). In highly unstable thoracic and thoracolumbar fractures with limited post-operative loss of correction and no hardware failure, thoracoscopic anterior stabilization led to a high percentage of bony fusion. In these subjects, QOL did not return to normal population values but was comparable to that of subjects with less severe fractures treated solely with posterior instrumentation.