Predictive factors of cervical spondylotic myelopathy in patients with lumbar spinal stenosis.

OBJECTIVE

To analyze cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) predictive factors in patients with lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS).

METHODS

Two hundred thirty-seven patients who visited for low back pain, lower limb pain and/or lower limb numbness and who were diagnosed with LSS were enrolled in this study. The ratio of males to females was 117-120, and the mean age was 68.8 years (range 45-87 years). LSS and CSM were diagnosed by characteristic symptoms, physical findings and MRI. We examined gender, age, Torg-Pavlov ratio (TPR), spondylolisthesis or spondylosis, LSS symptom types and number of stenosis segments with LSS to clarify predictive factors for CSM.

RESULTS

There were 21 (8.86%) patients with coexistent CSM among 237 LSS patients. CSM morbidity was significantly more common among males compared with females. TPR was 0.71 ± 0.09 in the CSM patients and 0.81 ± 0.10 in the non-CSM patients. TPR of the CSM patients was significantly smaller than that of the non-CSM patients. We analyzed to determine the predictive factors of CSM and TPR was identified. The predictive value of TPR for CSM was 0.78.

CONCLUSION

Torg-Pavlov ratio was the most important predictive factor of CSM in patients with LSS.