Longitud de las raíces cervicales en resonancia magnética: relación con la parálisis postoperatoria de la quinta raíz cervical

objective: to determine the length of the c5 root. methods: the cervical spines of 50 patients (29 male and 21 female), between 26 and 68 years old, were studied with magnetic resonance imaging (signa 1.5 t, axial images with 5 mm thickness, tr=850, te=26, fov=200). only patients with cervical and/or arm pain were included. we measured (mm) the length of the right and left, third to seventh cervical roots. a comparison of the average lengths was made with the variance analysis for α=0.05 significance level and a 95% ci. post-hoc comparisons were made with the bonferroni test. results: it was noted that the side (right or left) and gender (male or female) had no influence on the roots' length differences (p>0.05). the c5 root had a length significantly different (p<0.05) from the others, but the shorter was c3. conclusion: c5 root is not the shortest.