Anterior Cervical Microforaminotomy

Ha, Ho Gyun; Jung, Sung Sam; Park, Moon Sun

Abstract

Anterior cervical microforaminotomy is the one of surgical options for treating cervical spondylotic lesions manifested by radiculopathy or myelopathy. This minimally invasive surgical procedure is gaining popularity due to the recent trends of avoidance of spinal fusion resulting in loss of the physiologic spinal motion and developing a future adjacent segment syndrome. Although the spinal fusion still remains a gold standard procedure for degenerative cervical spinal diseases, the eager for maintaining the function of the motion segment is another issue for contemporary spinal surgeons. Anterior cervical microforaminotomy is a target-oriented operation that decompresses the nerve root or spinal cord without destruction of the spinal anatomical functional unit. Unlike to other procedures including total or partial resection of the intervertebral disc, this surgical procedure removes only a small part of the uncovertebral joint or vertebral body. Through this narrow corridor, adequate decompression of the nerve root or spinal cord can be achieved while preserving functional motion. Technical variations of the original anterior cervical microforaminotomy have been continuously developed to minimize the concerns for the postoperative disc height loss and instability. As of now, the anterior cervical microforaminotomy and its technical variations have been proved to be an excellent procedure for treating the cervical spondylotic radiculopathy from literatures review. But the long-term clinical results and the efficacy of the procedure for cervical myelopathy still remain to be seen.