Upper Cervical Anterior Diskectomy and Fusion Improves Discogenic Cervical Headaches

Abstract

Anterior cervical diskectomy and fusion appears to be quite effective for discogenic cervical headache, but should be reserved for patients who are extremely impaired and refractory to all other treatments.

Anatomic considerations of the anterior upper cervical spine during decompression and instrumentation: a cadaveric based study

“…The high anterior retropharyngeal approach has been described in detail by many authors [2,3,[11][12][13][14][15][16]. However, this is the first study describing this technique, step by step, with all the relevant anatomical structures fully exposed.…”

Headache and Neck

“…From one hand, although cervical lesions (eg, herniated disks [54,55] or artery dissections [56,57]) can produce head pain, CeH usually occurs without any demonstrable abnormality in cervical or brain imaging [58,59]. Mild disk protrusions, reduced disks heights, and small degenerative abnormalities are far too innocent and common in symptom-free individuals to be considered a significant source of headache unless proven otherwise.…”

Development of the Headache Activities of Daily Living Index: Initial Validity Study

“…The NDI was used as a template for the new instrument on account of the strong psychometric record of this instrument. 24,25 Furthermore, it has been used as an outcome measure in several headache studies, [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] although we would argue that this, in itself, is not appropriate. Therefore, the first set of possible items for inclusion in a new instrument was from the NDI items, which were deemed applicable to headaches.…”