The Biomechanical And Clinical Research Of The Morphometric Change Of The Adjacent Inferior Intervertebral Foramen After Cervical Artificial Disc Replacement

Herniated cervical intervertebral disk, osteophyte, and incrassate ligaments resulted from cervical degenerative diseases compress spinal cord and nerve roots and produce clinical symptom. The cervical degenerative diseases generally include the cervical spondylosis, the cervical unsteadiness and degenerative spinal stenosis. Anterior cervical decompression and fusion is an effective therapeutic method for cervical degenerative diseases, trauma, and tumor. Adjacent cervical segments degeneration develop after fusion because of increased movement. Cervical artificial disc replacement (CADR) is a new technique to replace the affected disc and exercise its function, with reservation of the movement of corresponding segment, and decrease adjacent degeneration. The intervertebral foramen dimension possesses decisive significance for the diagnosis of cervical intervertebral foramen stenosis and cervicalspondylotic radiculopathy. The study on the morphometric change of cervical intervertebral foramen has important significance because it is closely related to biomechanical characters and is one of the important indexes for evaluation of clinical efficiency. However there is no report whether the artificial disc can fulfill all function of the disc, or have side effect on the adjacent disc or intervertebral foramen, especially the inferior one.The study is to perform from the following three aspects: (1) To provide data for experiment and clinic through the observation and comparison of the cervical intervertebral foramen of cadaver and adults' X ray. (2) To explore the morphometric change of inferior(C_6/7) intervertebral foramen under different status and loading among groups of C_5/6ADR, normal disc, discectomy, anterior fusion. (3) To compare the morphometric change of inferior (C_6/7) intervertebral foramen after C_5/6ADR and anterior fusion at same level.Chapter One: The Anatomic Measurement of the CervicalIntervertebral Foramen...