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Introduction: Determination of anterior cervical fusion status is an integral part as evaluating or comparing the surgical outcome after anterior cervical arthrodesis. The determination has been dependent on the various radiographic criteria because the “gold standard”, surgical exploration is mostly impractical. Despite its clinical significance, most radiographic fusion criteria are still not validated or standardized. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the diagnostic accuracy of the criteria for determining anterior cervical fusion status correlated with the results of surgical exploration.

Introduction: Developmental cervical stenosis (DCS) predisposes patients to neurologic compression and loss of function through cervical cord neurapraxia and myelopathy. The historical plain film measurement to assess DCS, the Torg ratio, has been shown to provide high sensitivity, but low specificity for identifying DCS. Despite efforts to better approximate true sagittal canal diameter from plain film measurements, a more sensitive and specific radiographic index has not been reported. The goal of this study is to develop a novel index for DCS which utilizes a previously unreported spinal measurement, the distance between the spinolaminar line and the posterior border of the lateral mass (SL).

Introduction: It is essential to understand the natural history of cervical spine involvement in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). A prospective over 10-year cohort study was designed to clarify the aggravation of cervical spine instabilities which might introduce severe compression myelopathy in patients with RA.

Introduction: Surgical site infections (SSIs) after cervical spinal surgery occur in 0.9% to 15.0% of patients. Such complications are devastating to patients and the healthcare system. As Staphylococcus aureus is the most common organism responsible for SSIs, vancomycin powder has the potential to serve as a simple, cost-effective solution to the problem. It is poorly absorbed from the wound avoiding potential systemic side effects while maintaining high local wound concentrations. Although in vitro studies suggest that vancomycin is cytotoxic to differentiating osteoblasts, the effect of vancomycin powder application on the rates of spinal arthrodesis has not been properly evaluated.

Introduction: Interlaminar bony fusion after cervical laminoplasty is one of causes to decrease postoperative cervical range of motion (ROM). It was reported to occur in 53% of patients, with marked frequency at C2-3. In a previous report, C3 laminectomy, instead of laminoplasty, could minimize muscle detachment at C2 and decrease the postoperative neck pain. Our hypothesis in this study is if C3 lamina is resected rather than opened during multi-level laminoplasty, the bony fusion between C2-3-4 laminae could be prevented and postoperative motion would be preserved more.

Objectives: Many authors have reported prognostic factors that may influence the neurological outcome such as, patient age, symptom duration, the severity of symptoms, the compression ratio of spinal cord, and the signal changes on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Particularly, intramedullary signal intensity (SI) changes on T2-weighted imaging (T2WI) have been discussed to be a controversial issue in cervical compressive myelopathy. Some authors reported that patients with increased intramedullary SI show a poor prognosis after surgical decompression, while others asserted that there is no clear relationship between the SI and the prognosis after the surgery.

Introduction: There is increasing interest the impact of cervical sagittal alignment (CSA) on surgical outcomes, with a recent study showing the impact of C2-7 sagittal vertical axis (SVA) in patients undergoing posterior cervical fusion. In addition, studies have found T1 slope to be an important predictor of adjacent segment disease following anterior fusion.  However, it remains unclear whether associations between CSA and patient reported outcomes (PROs) exist following anterior cervical fusion procedures.

Introduction: Patients with cervical radiculopathy and myelopathy may have significant upper extremity weakness. Although anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) has been shown to effectively relieve pain and prevent progressive worsening of myelopathy, it is unclear what factors influence recovery of motor function following ACDF. The purpose of our study is to identify factors that significantly affect the postoperative recovery of motor function in patients with significant upper extremity weakness undergoing ACDF. Methods: From our prospectively maintained institutional database, we identified 603 patients undergoing one, two, three, or four level ACDFs for radiculopathy and/or myelopathy between January 2011 and December 2012.