In our hospital, cervical interbody fusion has been performed on 23 patients of cervical discopathy (including cervical spondylosis and cervical trauma) during the last 8 months. Discussing the cases, we noticed it to be very difficult to diagnose exactly the symptomatic level of cervical disc for reason of its miscellaneous neurologic symptoms due to multiple degenerative lesions, inspite of many diagnostic procedures. Therefore, we should not neglect that the involved disc exists even in the asymptomatic level except the level diagnosed through the systematic examination. In conclusion, it is recommended that the spinal fusion should be performed even in the suspected level adjacent to the symptomatic disc.
It is reported that the pathogenesis of neuropathy in cervical spondylosis is the compression due to instability of the cervical spine or the posterior protrusion of its vertebral ridge and disc. We should remove these pathogenic causes. In some cases, we encounter the difficulties in the complete removal of osteophytes encroaching upon the nerve roots or the spinal cord by Cloward's method. Recently, we have obtained the good results by the modified Robinson's method that aligns the local kyphotic curvature of the cervical spine and eliminates the compression upon the nerve roots and the spinal cord by means of the insertion of the wedgeshaped bone plug into the intervertebral space.
