No abstract

The present results demonstrate that a sufficient posterior shift of the spinal cord and neurologic improvement will not be obtained after posterior decompression surgery in the K-line (-) group. Our new index, the K-line, is a simple and practical tool for making decisions regarding the surgical approach for cervical OPLL patients.

These results demonstrated that the surgical outcome of ASF was superior to the surgical outcome of laminoplasty. Elderly patients treated with laminoplasty showed an especially poor surgical outcome. We suggest that hypermobility of vertebrae at the cord compression level is a risk factor for poor surgical outcome after laminoplasty. Based on these results, we recommend that ASF should be the first choice of treatment for patients with significant ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament and a hypermobile cervical spine. When laminoplasty is used for such cases, the addition of posterior instrumented fusion would be desirable for stabilizing the spine and decreasing damage to the spinal cord.