STUDY DESIGN  Prospective cohort study. OBJECTIVE  The aim of the study was to compare clinical results and to determine differences in outcomes between anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) and disc arthroplasty in patients treated for symptomatic cervical degenerative disc disease. METHODS  Forty patients with cervical degenerative disc disease were treated with ProDisc-C disc ar...

PURPOSE To assess the relation between ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and degenerative disc disease emerging in association with various intrinsic and extrinsic factors and to evaluate the correlation between degree of degeneration in intervertebral discs and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values. METHODS Thirty-five patients with AS and a control group of 35 patients were included in the ...

Degenerative disc disease (DDD) of the cervical spine is common after middle age and can cause loss of disc height with painful nerve impingement, bone and joint inflammation. Despite the clinical importance of these problems, in current publications the pathology of cervical disc degeneration has been studied merely from a morphologic view point using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), without ...

Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) or Forestier's disease is characterized by calcification and ossification of soft tissue entheses of ligaments and tendons. DISH is believed to be a variant of osteoarthritis (OA) without the degenerative intervertebral disc and joint degenerative qualities seen in classic OA. The likely pathoetiologic causes of DISH are presented.

PURPOSE We investigated types and prevalence of coexisting lesions found on whole spine sagittal T2-weighted images (WSST2I) acquired from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and evaluated their clinical significance in surgical degenerative spinal diseases. MATERIALS AND METHODS Coexisting spinal lesions were investigated using WSST2I from 306 consecutive patients with surgical degenerative spi...

OBJECTIVE As a main cellular component within the disc, nucleus pulposus (NP) cells play important roles in disc physiology. However, little is known on the biologic hallmarks of human NP cells. Therefore, the present study aimed to address the features of human NP cells. METHODS Human NP samples were collected from normal cadavers, patients with scoliosis and disc degeneration as normal, dis...

There have only been a few randomized controlled trials of surgical treatment of chronic low back pain caused by degenerative disc disease. Fusion surgery has been compared primarily with nonoperative treatment, whereas disc arthroplasty has been compared with fusion surgery. The results for either of the two surgical procedures are modest in terms of pain relief and improved function.

Over the past few decades small animal models mainly involving rodents and rabbits have been developed whereby needle puncture, stab incision or enzymatic approaches have been validated to create the degenerative disc. Although important, these models continue to be plagued by biological attributes that limit applicability to the human condition. However, the fascinating story of two naturally ...

Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis is a disease of old age, in which there is bony proliferation of spine in ventral and lateral aspects of vertebral body. A 80-years-old male presented to us with features of low back pain radiating along the right lower limb in the posterolateral aspect. After examination and investigations, he was found to have metabolic syndrome, degenerative lumbar di...