Patients With Preoperative Cervical Deformity Experience Similar Clinical Outcomes to Those Without Deformity Following 1-3 Level Anterior Cervical Decompression and Fusion

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-20-2021

Abstract

STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVE: The aim was to compare the outcomes of patients with incompletely corrected cervical deformity against those without deformity following short-segment anterior cervical decompression and fusion for clinically significant radiculopathy or myelopathy.

SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: Cervical deformity has increasingly been recognized as a driver of disability and has been linked to worse patient-reported outcomes measures (PROMs) after surgery.

METHODS: Patients 18 years or above who underwent 1-3 level anterior cervical decompression and fusion to address radiculopathy and/or myelopathy at a single institution between 2014 and 2018 with at least 1 year of PROMs were reviewed. Patients were categorized based on cervical deformity into 2 groups: sagittal vertebral axis (cSVA) ≥40 mm as the deformity group, and cSVAdemographics, surgical parameters, preoperative and postoperative radiographs, and minimum 1-year PROMs were compared.

RESULTS: Of the 230 patients, 191 (83%) were in the nondeformity group and 39 (17%) in the deformity group. Patients with deformity were more likely to be male (69.2% vs. 40.3%, P

CONCLUSIONS: Patients with preoperative cervical sagittal deformity experienced relatively greater improvements in NDI and MCS-12 scores than those without preoperative deformity. These results suggest that complete correction of sagittal alignment is not required for patients to achieve significant clinical improvement.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: III.

Comments

This article was published in Clinical Spine Surgery.

The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1097/bsd.0000000000001291.

Copyright © 2021 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc..

Publication Title

Clinical Spine Surgery

PubMed ID

34923501

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