Fusion Rate for Single Level ACDF with and without Plating in Degenerative Disc Disease, Tracing the Results
Author(s): Amr Ismail, Muhammad Mohsin khan
Background: Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) is one of the most common spine surgeries performed as the treatment for diverse cervical spine diseases including degenerative spondylosis, disc prolapse, trauma, infections and instability Multifarious ways to fuse have been practised: bone graft or bone graft substitute augmented by an anterior plate, stand-alone strut graft, inter-body cage with anterior plate, stand-alone cage and zero-profile cage. Of these, the most common fusion techniques include anterior cervical fusion with stand-alone cage or cage-plate construct.
Methods: This is a retrospective study included ninety nine patients underwent who underwent ACDF with plating or without plating from Jan. 2009 to Dec. 2017. The data were collected from patient files. Patients had follow up cervical XRAY at 6 and 24 months to assess the fusion criteria.
Results & Conclusion: The results showed that, In the fusion only group 33 patients (75%) had a complete fusion while only 6 patients (15%) had no fusion. In the plate group 6 patients out of 8 had complete fusion (75%) and only 2 patients (25%) had no fusion. And the conclusion was that the fusion rate was more or less similar in both techniqes.