[Possibilities of cervical fusion surgery in the spinal canal with intervertebral disk degeneration, Therapeutic and case-report contribution].

This is a report of a patient with pains in the shoulders and arms, atrophies of the small muscles of the hands, and paraspasms of the legs. After having suffered from the disease for eight to nine years, the patient was diagnosed as having cervical myelopathy. Measurements of the bony cervical vertebral column, which were made on a lateral roentgenogram, showed extreme narrowness of the spinal canal, the measured values obtained being below the lower limit. In addition, the cervical canal was narrowed at three levels by the formation of projections on degenerate disks. This suggested the most effective surgical treatment: Vetral clearance of disks, removal of prominences, and fusion of the three levels through the use of four bone dowels. Subsidence of pains in the shoulders and arms, improvements of paresis of the hands, and considerable improvement of paraspams of the legs were observed postoperatively. This particular case shows that surgical intervention may be considered a possible method of therapy even in the case of narrowness of the cervical canal, a condition that was aggravated here by a number of degenerate disks. In such situations it is possible for the cervical canal to be considerably relieved by clearing the disks, removing the projections and crests, and making use of the special technique of fusion or joining together so that improvement will be possible even in those cases where the disease has already arrived at a progressive state.