Treatment of Degenerative Disc Disease with the ProDisc-C Cervical Disc Prosthesis: Literature Review, Interdisciplinary Aspects and Personal Experience

Cervical disc herniations represent the most frequent cervical-level pathology in patients aged 40 and above. Symptoms usually include C6-C7 radiculopathy, which has a prevalence of 3.3/1000 individuals. There still is a debate on whether any gender is more frequently affected, as some authors report women are more frequently affected [2, 3] while others claim both genders are equally affected. Ever since the 1950s the standard treatment for such patients was represented by Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion (ACDF), however, concern for the development of adjacent level degeneration after the fusion of mobile vertebral segments has increased the interest in developing new dynamic disc prostheses designed to mimic the functions and natural motion of the spine. The purpose of this paper is to summarize, in a comprehensive literature-review-type article, the existing data regarding the ProDisc-C spinal implant within the OVID, SCOPUS and MEDLINE databases while at the same time presenting the personal experience of the authors using the above-mentioned implant.