Is it Safe and Effective to Treat Complex Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy Using Piezosurgery in Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion?

Abstract

Objective To investigate the safety and efficacy of piezosurgery in anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) for treating patients with cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) coincident retrovertebral body osteophytes adjacent to the endplate or a free nucleus pulposus migrated to the vertebral body, posteriorly; known as complex cervical spondylotic myelopathy (cCSM) here.Methods Forty-seven patients with cCSM underwent ACDF surgery from 2014 to 2017. Among these patients, 26 underwent ACDF using piezosurgery (group A) and 21 underwent ACDF by traditional tools such as air drill, bone curet and gun-shaped bone forceps (group B). Average operative duration, intraoperative blood loss, surgical complications, preoperative and postoperative Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) scores and improvement rate were measured.Results Average operative duration and intraoperative blood loss were significantly lower in the piezosurgery group than those in the traditional group (P < 0.01). The incidences of surgical complications were 3.8% and 23.8% in the piezosurgery and traditional groups (P < 0.05), respectively. Whereas JOA scores and improvement rate were insignificantly different at each data collection period (P > 0.05); preoperative, postoperative 3 days and postoperative 1 year follow-up were included.Conclusion For treating cCSM, both the piezosurgery and traditional tools led to significant neurological improvement. However, the piezosurgery was superior to the traditional tools in terms of operative duration, blood loss, and complication rate. Hence, the piezosurgery was a safe and effective adjunct for ACDF treating cCSM.