Five Cases of the Ossification of Yellow Ligament of the Thoracic Spine

Abstract

We reported here five cases of the ossification of yellow ligament of the thoracic spine. The average age of the patients was 56 years, ranging from 44 to 77 years. The average follow-up period was 3.3 years, ranging from 0.5 up to 6 years.
It was difficult to identify affected levels of the spine in 4 out of the 5 cases which had ossification in other parts of the spine. We found difficulty in some cases in performing decompression of the ossified spinal lesions.
Clinical results were satisfactory in 4 cases except one with the ossification of posterior longitudinal ligament.