Anterior Cervical Spinal Surgery for Multilevel Cervical Myelopathy.

Background: In multilevel spinal cord compression caused by cervical spondylosis, surgeonsface the choice of performing a posterior route as a laminectomy orlaminoplasty, or an anterior route as multiple adjacent interbody decompressionsor corpectomies. The anterior cervical operation is not considered bysome clinicians because of concerns about complications and the complexityof multilevel anterior cervical surgery.Methods: In this retrospective study, 14 patients with multilevel cervical spondylosiswho were operated on via an anterior route were enrolled to evaluate thecomplexity, safety, and clinical results. The collected parameters were operationtime, blood loss, hospital days, and early and late complications forevaluating the operative complexity, radiographic follow-up for evaluatingfusion, graft problems, implants problems, and the recovery rate using theJapanese Orthopaedic Association score (JOA score) for evaluating the operativeresults.Results: The mean operation time was 363.4 min, and blood loss was 431.4 ml. Anearly complication was noted in 1 patient with combined deep vein thrombosisand a pulmonary embolism. Late complications were screw breakage in1 patient and screw loosening in 5 patients. The mean duration of follow-upwas 21.9 months. The mean recovery rate of the JOA score was 38.8% postoperativelyand 51.9% at the final follow-up. The fusion rate was 100% inthis series.Conclusions: Anterior cervical decompression and fusion for multilevel stenosis requires alonger operation time than posterior procedures; however, the clinical resultsare satisfactory.