The spine journal : official journal of the North American Spine Society
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The NECK trial: Effectiveness of anterior cervical discectomy with or without interbody fusion and arthroplasty in the treatment of cervical disc herniation; a double-blinded randomized controlled trial.
Motion preserving anterior cervical disc arthroplasty (ACDA) in patients with cervical radiculopathy was introduced to prevent symptomatic adjacent disc degeneration as compared with anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF). Prior reports suggest that ACDF is not more effective than anterior cervical discectomy (ACD) alone for the treatment of cervical radiculopathy. ⋯ The hypothesis that ACDA would lead to superior clinical outcome in comparison to ACDF or ACD could not be confirmed during a 2-year follow-up time period. Single level ACD without implanting an intervertebral device may be a reasonable alternative to ACDF or ACDA.