[Free vascularized fibula graft applied to anterior body fusion of the cervical spine--clinical and experimental study].

This paper describes a clinical application of the free vascularized fibula graft to the anterior cervical fusion and its long-term post-operative results. We performed the above operation on six patients with disorders of the cervical spine at multiple intervertebral levels. 1) All grafts were successfully united between 2.5 and 5 months (mean 3.4 months). 2) Similar operations performed experimentally on a rabbit model indicated that muscle sleeves surrounding vascularized bone grafts were replaced by fat tissue and did not ossificate through 'metaplasia'. The experiment further showed that partial bone union was possible mediated through fat tissue. In clinical cases, post-operative CT demonstrated bone union between the middle of the grafted bone and vertebral body. 3) The present procedure appears to be superior to conventional methods which produce occasional delayed bone union and pseudoarthrosis formation, therefore, is recommended highly for a treatment of the anterior body fusion of the cervical spine involved with more than three intervertebral discs.