Double-door laminoplasty using autologous spinous process for the management of cervical myelopathy

We describe a technique of double-door laminoplasty for the management of cervical myelopathy using the autologous spinous process instead of an artificial spacer. The aims in the present study were to determine the fusion rate and the incidence rate of breakage in the autologous spinous process, and to assess its efficacy for cervical laminoplasty. Twenty-three patients of cervical myelopathy were treated with double-door laminoplasty followed by implantation of the autologous spinous process. The spinous process from C3 to C7 was resected, at 8 mm from the basal part of the spinous process. The autologous spinous process was made from the removed spinous process, and was implanted between each expanded laminae. Post-operative CT scanning determined the fusion rate between the expanded laminae and the autologous spinous process as 70.4% at 3 months, and 93.5% at 6 months, after the operation. There was no dissociation and no breakage in the autologous spinous process during the follow-up observation period. There were certain advantages to our technique including the high fusion rate and good stability in the autologous spinous process. In addition, this technique was less expensive than other techniques using an artificial spacer. These findings indicated that this technique was a reliable procedure for effectively treating of cervical myelopathy which are caused by multisegmental cervical canal stenosis.