• Chao-Hung Kuo, Yi-Hsuan Kuo, Jau-Ching Wu, Hsuan-Kan Chang, Chin-Chu Ko, Tsung-Hsi Tu, Chih-Chang Chang, Mei-Yin Yeh, Li-Yu Fay, Wen-Cheng Huang, and Henrich Cheng.
• Department of Neurosurgery, Neurological Institute, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; School of Medicine, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan; Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Biomedical Science and Engineering, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan.
• World Neurosurg. 2022 Jul 1; 163: e310e316e310-e316.

ObjectiveAlthough cervical disc arthroplasty (CDA) has reportedly been associated with similarly low incidences of complications to anterior cervical discectomy and fusion, the phenomenon of anterior bone loss (ABL) is unique to CDA and has only recently gained notice. This study thus aimed to investigate the incidence of ABL and its correlation with cervical alignment post-operation.MethodsConsecutive patients who received CDA for herniated disc or spondylosis were retrospectively reviewed. The development and extent of ABL was detected by comparison of preoperative and postoperative serial images for the relative position of the anterior vertebral body with the CDA devices and graded into 3 levels: grade 1 (minor bone loss), grade 2 (anterior portion of the vertebral body without exposure of the artificial disc), and grade 3 (anterior portion of the vertebral body with exposure of the device).ResultsA total of 41 patients were analyzed with a mean follow-up of 24.1 months. Under serial radiologic examinations during follow-up, all patients (41 of 41 = 100%) had bone loss of various degrees, with grade 3 ABL the most common (30 of 41 = 73.1%). There were 8 and 3 patients who had grades 2 and 1 ABL, respectively. The changes of the Cobb angle (ΔCobb) trended towards higher grades of ABL.ConclusionsDuring the mean follow-up of 2 years, ABL was a common radiologic finding. More than half of the patients (26 of 41, 63.4%) in the series gained cervical lordosis (ΔCobb >0) after CDA. These patients with increased cervical lordosis (ΔCobb >0) after CDA had higher grades of ABL.Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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