BACKGROUND:Percutaneous injection of bone cement into the vertebral body can enhance the vertebral strength and vertebral stability, and obtain pain relief. But the bone cement may leakage into the paravertebral vessels during injection, and may back to the right ventricle and flow into the pulmonary artery through vena cave and thus causing pulmonary embolism. OBJECTIVE:To evaluate the relationship between cement paravertebral vascular leakage and pulmonary cement embolism during percutaneous vertebroplasty. METHODS:Total y 134 cases of osteoporotic compression fractures treated with vertebroplasty were retrospectively analyzed. Among them, 23 cases of cement paravertebral vascular leakage were considered as the experimental group, and the 43 cases without cement paravertebral vascular leakage and had the complete imaging data were considered as the control group. The spine and chest X-ray films were taken before and after vertebroplasty to detect whether there were cement paravertebral vascular leakage and pulmonary cement embolism in the patients of two groups. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Among the 134 patients, 23 patients had cement paravertebral vascular leakage, and accounted for 17.2%. Among the 23 patients with cement paravertebral vascular leakage, three cases had pulmonary cement embolism without chest symptoms, and accounted for 13%. No pulmonary cement embolism occurred in the 43 patients without paravertebral vascular leakage of the control group, and there was no significant difference between two groups (P=0.039). Although the patients with cement pulmonary embolism remained asymptomatic, pulmonary cement embolism remained possible if cement paravertebral vascular leakage was detected during vertebroplasty.