Operative Results in the Treatment of Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy

Progressive myelopathy due to cervical spondylosis is a recognized clinical entity. For many years the accepted alternative to conservative treatment has been surgery. The standard cervical approach has been via the posterior route, performing decompressive laminectomy, foraminotomy or dentate attachments’ division in varying degree and combination. The anterior approach has been devised more recently as an alternative procedure whenever the pathologic condition in cervical spondylosis lies anterior to the spinal canal and in single-level lesions. Indications and limits of these two major surgical procedures have been extensively discussed in literature, whereas follow-up of patients operated upon have seldom been reported in detail (13, 7, 9, 1, 5, 11, 10, 6).