The Effect of Cervical Laminoplasty and Laminectomy on the Cobb Angle in the Treatment of Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy

Abstract

Treating Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy (CSM) has always been a complicated procedure for surgeons. The most utilized procedures for treating CSM included laminectomy with fusion (LF) and cervical laminoplasty (LP). Both these procedures are found to be favourable in this regard. The present retrospective study was conducted to determine the impact of LP and LF on the Cobb angle of the patients while treating CSM. For this purpose, 52 patients who underwent LP or LF were selected and divided into groups based on the procedure they went through: LP group (26 patients with a mean age of 60.11 years) and LF group (26 patients with a mean age of 63.83 years). For this study, both pre and postoperative clinical and radiographic outcomes for both groups were determined. The clinical outcomes included recovery rates, VAS and mJOA scores, whereas the main parameters for determining the radiographic outcomes were Cobb angle (C2-C7), diameter and area. The values of p for VAS, mJOA scores, diameter (mm) and area (mm²) were found to be ≤ 0.05, showing significant outcomes, while the value of p in the context of Cobb angle (C2-C7) for the LP group was found to be 0.044 and that of LF group was 0.308. So LP had a significant impact on the Cobb angle. However, in preoperative axial pain, the most suitable procedure is LF.