Türk Nöroşirürji Dergisi 2022 , Vol 32 , Num 3
Radiologic Evaluation in Degenerative Disease of the Cervical Spine
Yunus Emre ŞENTÜRK1,Ali Yusuf ÖNER1
1Koç Üniversitesi Hastanesi, Radyoloji Bölümü, İstanbul, Türkiye Cervical spondylosis is a common term, indicating progressive degeneration of cervical vertebral bodies, intervertebral disc herniation, and thickening of adjacent ligamentous structures as with aging. It is considered to be the main vertebral abnormality causing neck rigidity, discomfort, shooting-type radicular pain as well as myelopathy in adults. Disc herniation and other degenerative changes including uncinate process hypertrophy, osteophyte formation, ligament calcification, cervical malalignment, and facet joint arthrosis can variably contribute to neural foraminal or central canal narrowing. Appropriate cervical MRI with relevant clinical evaluation can elucidate the major anatomic structures involved in spondylosis, and identify the level of the pain generator and source implicated with the concurrent neurologic deficit. Cervical MRI also plays an important role in ruling out non-spondylotic pathologies that might have similar clinical presentations, with a high level of confidence. Furthermore, in addition to conventional cervical MRI, there are new preliminary studies showing the efficacy of multimodality-based quantitative cervical MRI, particularly in the potential clinical outcome and prognosis prediction, by deriving data from implicated cord signal abnormalities. This is thought to be a promising method in cases with equivocal potential surgical benefit or patients with normal spinal cord signal patterns despite overt clinical myelopathy as a presenting symptom. Anahtar Kelimeler : Cervical vertebrae, Spondylosis, Intervertebral disc, Longitudinal ligaments, Spinal cord, Spinal nerve roots, Myelopathy