The first percutaneous vertebroplasty, used to treat a painful cervical haemangioma, was performed by a French team in 1984 and reported in the literature in 1987. This technique has rapidly become the standard of care for treatment of medically refractory painful vertebral compression fractures. Vertebral fractures usually become evident because of pain of varying intensity that reduces the patient's quality of life, producing functional limitations, depression, disability, height loss, spinal instability and kyphotic deformity associated with impaired lung capacity. Many diseases may underlie vertebral compression fractures, such as osteoporosis, trauma, neoplasms and haemangioma. Vertebroplasty, as derived from our experience and a review of the literature data, has more than 70%-90% effectiveness for short-term pain reduction and return to activity. The aim of this paper was to describe the state of the art of this spinal interventional radiology procedure and to examine the future directions of percutaneous vertebroplasty.