• Spine · Oct 2019

    Age-Related Changes in Cervical Sagittal Alignment: A Radiographic Analysis.

    • Ray Tang, Ivan B Ye, Zoe B Cheung, Jun S Kim, and Samuel Kang-Wook Cho.
    • Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY.
    • Spine. 2019 Oct 1; 44 (19): E1144-E1150.

    Study DesignRetrospective cohort study.ObjectiveTo identify age-related changes in cervical sagittal parameters using standard radiographs.Summary Of Background DataCervical sagittal balance is important for the maintenance of neutral head posture and horizontal gaze. Degenerative changes in the cervical spine that occur with aging may alter cervical sagittal balance, which can lead to chronic neck pain and predispose to various cervical spine pathologies.MethodsWe performed a retrospective cohort study of 151 patients with lateral cervical spine radiographs taken at our institution between December 2017 and June 2018. Cervical sagittal parameters were measured, including C1 inclination, C2 slope, C2-C7 Cobb angle, cervical sagittal vertical axis (cSVA), cervical tilt, upper and lower C7 slopes, T1 slope, and T1 slope minus cervical lordosis (TS-CL). The association between age and cervical sagittal parameters was assessed using the Pearson correlation coefficient and a linear regression analysis. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Tukey adjustments was then performed to identify differences in cervical sagittal parameters among patients aged 18 to 39 years, 40 to 64 years, and >64 years of age.ResultsThere were positive correlations between age and C2-C7 Cobb angle (r = 0.231, P = 0.004), upper C7 slope (r = 0.280, P < 0.001), lower C7 slope (r = 0.283, P < 0.001), and T1 slope (r = 0.189, P = 0.020). Upper C7 slope (R = 0.079) and lower C7 slope (R = 0.074) had the strongest correlation with age in the linear regression analysis. The ANOVA found significant differences among the age subgroups in terms of C2-C7 Cobb angle (P = 0.002), upper C7 slope (P < 0.001), lower C7 slope (P < 0.001), and T1 slope (P = 0.031). Patients >64 years old had significantly higher C2-C7 Cobb angle, upper C7 slope, lower C7 slope, and T1 slope.ConclusionChanges in cervical sagittal alignment with age are characterized by increased cervical lordosis and increased thoracic kyphosis.Level Of Evidence3.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…