Clinical profile of patients with Cervical Myelopathy

Author(s): Dr. Gautham Kiron T and Dr. Girish Chandra Rangaswamy

Abstract: Introduction: The natural history of cervical myelopathy is usually progressive in nature, the primary goal being early diagnosis and treatment. Diagnosis is mainly done through clinical and radiological methods. Cervical myelopathy presents with a constellation of symptoms and definitive physical findings, initially with dis-balance and Parasthesia progressing to various patterns of motor, sensory and vasomotor disturbances. MRI being the investigation of choice helps delineate the cause and the extent of the pathology Methodology: A total of 42 patients underwent cervical decompression for cervical myelopathy using anterior techniques. 2 patients were lost to follow up and excluded from the study. Of the patients that were included in the study 36 were males and 4 were females. The patients were followed up for a maximum of 42 weeks and a minimum of 12 weeks. Results: At the time of presentation 6 (15%) patients had difficulty in walking at home, climbing stairs, 21(52.5%) patients had abnormal sensation over the thorax and limbs and 12 (30%) patients had motor involvement in terms of weakness. Conclusion: We also studied the frequency of involved myelopathy level, most patients had more than 1 level involvement. Overall we found that C5-C6 level was the most common region of 41.79% to develop myelopathy.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22271/ortho.2018.v4.i1o.141