[Incidence and clinical importance of chronic reactive periosteal new bone formation in the cervical region in patients with differing neurologic symptomatology].

81 patients classed into three groups with clinical evidence of neurological symptoms and posttraumatic pain of the cervical spine and the incidence of degenerative disorders were studied noninvasively via CT scanning. Imaging of osseous structures in the axial plane by CT was excellent in all cases, even in the lower part of the cervical spine where soft-tissue discrimination is often impossible because of shoulder artifacts. In about half of the patients with nerve-root symptomatology as well as with signs of involvement of long tracts, narrowing of the foramen intervertebral, respectively of the spinal tract, was seen, attributable to degenerative osseous apposition with excellent clinical segmental and (according to radicular symptoms) side correlation. In contrast to these results the group of patients with posttraumatic clinical symptoms showed almost 50 per cent less preexisting degenerative disorders of the cervical spine. In conclusion, we assume that high-grade osseous appositions of the dorsal part of the vertebral body play an important role in the development of radicular symptomatology and cervical myelopathy, respectively. Hypertrophic changes of the processus articularis with narrowing of the spinal canal occurred in 14 per cent and were therefore of minor clinical significance.