Evaluation of clinical and radiological outcome of disk preserving functional cervical disk surgery

Introduction: Cervical radiculopathy is a neurological disfunction wherein a nerve root in the cervical spine becomes inflamed with disc herniation and uncovertebral osteophytes accounting for the majority of cases. The standard surgical treatment for this cervical radiculopathy till now is posterior lamino foraminotomy and anterior discectomy with or without fusion. This study describe the outcome of a minimally invasive anterior cervical disc preserving technique of upper vertebral transcorporeal anterior microforaminotomy to treat cervical radiculopathy Cervical. Objective: To Evaluate the clinical and radiological outcome of disk preserving functional cervical disk surgery. Material and Methods: This is a prospective non randomised hospital based study. The study population included 11 patients operated for cervical radiculopathy with the new technique at the department of Neurosurgery, Manipal Hospital, Bangalore during July 2007 to June 2010. The patients were followed up from 8 to 30 months with a mean follow up of 17 months for clinical and radiological outcome. Results: The mean age of the patient was 40.099.71 years. The majority of the patients (five) were in 31-40 age groups. Male patients (63.6%) were more as compared to females. All patients in this study had neck pain, radicular pain and weakness. Clinical symptoms were between 1 to 3months. The mean preoperative visual analogue scale score was 8.55 and postoperative score was 1.18. The VAS score reduced significantly postoperatively and it was statistically significant. There was no significant reduction in the disc height postoperatively. Conclusion: The Disk preserving functional cervical disk surgery is a minimal invasive procedure with the least complications and adequate motion at the operated site. Keywords: Cervical Disk Surgery, Cervical radiculopathy, Disk preserving, Disk Herniation