Harrington rod [Neurosurgery Wiki]

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====== Harrington rod ======

The Harrington [[rod]] (or Harrington implant) is a stainless steel surgical [[device]].

Historically, this rod was implanted along the [[spinal column]] to treat, among other conditions, a lateral or coronal-plane curvature of the spine, or [[scoliosis]]. Up to one million people had Harrington rods implanted for scoliosis between the early 1960s and the late 1990s.

The Harrington implant was developed in [[1953]] by Paul Harrington, a professor of orthopedic surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in [[Houston]], Texas.

Harrington rods were intended to provide a means to reduce the curvature and to provide more stability to a spinal fusion. Before the Harrington rod was invented, scoliosis patients had their spines fused without any instrumentation to support it; such fusions required many months in plaster casts, and large curvatures could progress despite fusion.