Clinical Aspects of Cervical Stenosis

Cervical stenosis afflicts men more often than women (60% and 40% respectively). It is most common in middle age; the average age of 50% of patients is between 40 and 50 years, while up to 80 % of patients have an average age of 60 years. Spondylotic cervical myelopathy has long been regarded as a consequence of intervertebral disk degeneration, on the basis that it produces narrowing of the diameter of the spinal canal in the adult. The same can occur as a consequence both of congenital and of acquired stenosis (e.g., hypertrophy of the laminae or of the ligamentum flavum or malformation of the pedicles). In the development of neurological disorders, mechanical factors (e.g., direct compression, instability, excessive tension on the neural structure) are as important as the vascular factors that produce injury by ischemia. The part that each of these plays in the development of the pathology is incompletely understood.