Surgical Outcome of Posterior Cervical Foramenotomy

Objective: Objective of the study was to evaluate the surgical outcome of posterior foraminotomy in patients with cervical spondylotic radicular symptoms.Material and Methods: This descriptive observational study was conducted at the department of neurosurgery lady reading hospital Peshawar from July 2012 to June 2018 (6 years). The author has personal experience of 29 patients during the study period. All consecutive patients who underwent posterior cervical foraminotomy for cervical spondylotic radiculopathy included in the study, irrespective of their age and gender. After approval from the hospital ethical committee, informed consent was taken from patients or their relatives. The patients were followed up improvement of symptoms and post-operative complications. The data was entered in a specially designed Performa. Patients’ data was analyzed using SPSS version 21.Results: We had total 29 patients during the study period who full fill the inclusion criteria. Most (65.5%) of our patients were men. Age of the patients ranged from 23-66 years with the mean age of 44.5% year. The most common level involved was C6-7 (41.4%) followed by C5-6 (37.9%). The most common operative indications for cervical radiculopathy was lateral soft disc herniation followed by osteophyte formation and foraminal stenosis. Post operatively arm pain relieved in almost all patients. Pins and needles, improved in 79.3% cases. Post-operatively neck pain and superficial wound infection was observed each in one (3.4%) case. One of our patients improved initially, but after 2 months had recurrent of symptoms and needed anterior cervical discectomy.Conclusion: We conclude from our study that cervical spondylotic radiculopathy patients respond well to posterior cervical foraminotomy. This procedure is having an acceptable complication rate. This is an effective and safe procedure. This approach can be an alternative treatment choice in patients with cervical radiculopathy secondary to lateral disc herniation, and or foraminal stenosis.