Posterior Fusion for the Subaxial Cervical Spine: A Review of the Major Techniques

Abstract

Posterior fusion is a powerful tool to address pathology of the cervical spine, but the decision to fuse at any level should be made with great care. Various methods and constructs for posterior cervical fusion exist, all of which aim to restore the posterior tension band's ability to resist flexion forces. We identified articles regarding posterior fusion of the subaxial cervical spine in MEDLINE, Google Scholar, and PubMed. This article is a narrative review of earlier and current concepts regarding the posterior fusion of the subaxial cervical spine, including wiring, translaminar screws, lateral mass screws, and pedicle screws, weighing the strengths and weakness of the different modalities that the surgeon should bear in mind in creating operative plans individualized to patient pathology.

Clinical efficiency of operating room-based sliding gantry CT as compared to mobile cone-beam CT-based navigated pedicle screw placement in 853 patients and 6733 screws

“…While the accuracy of pedicle screw placement and revision rates of the present study are comparable to earlier publications on navigated pedicle screws, the differences of durations are difficult to compare since measurements, subgroups, and the complexity of surgeries vary across publications. With a special regard to instrumentation of the cervical spine and cervicothoracic junction, the present study's results show one of the largest cohorts with CT-navigated cervical pedicle screws [23][24][25][26]. The present subanalysis showed less differences for the comparison of the ORCT and CBCT group.…”

Comparison of laminoplasty and posterior fusion surgery for cervical ossification of posterior longitudinal ligament

“…Posterior spinal fusion using the pedicle screw and/or lateral mass screw system was performed 22 . With respect to surgical decompression, laminectomy or laminoplasty was performed in accordance with each facility’s policies (Fig.…”