Cervical spondylosis in Nepalese porters

Neck pain with or without radiculopathy and myelopathy is a very common problem in clinical practice. The incidence is believed to be higher in subgroups carrying load on their head. It has been reported in literature that radiographic spondylosis is appreciable in 25% to 50% of population by the age of 50 years and 75% to 85% by the age of 65 years. One hundred and nineteen lateral X-rays of cervical spine were analyzed as case-control study in patients between 40 and 50 years age with the objective of finding out proportion of cervical spondylosis in this age group and difference in the prevalence between porters and non-porters. Out of the 119 cases 54 (45.4.2%) were porters and 65 (54.6%) were non-porters. There were 98 (82.4%) males and 21 (17.6%) females. The overall prevalence of radiological cervical spondylosis was 69 (58%). The prevalence of cervical spondylosis was significantly lower (x2=14.795, p=0.0001) in porters in comparison to non-porters. The odds ratio was found to be 0.23 (0.10, 0.53) at 95% confidence interval indicating that portering significantly prohibited development of spondylosis. This study concludes that the overall prevalence of cervical spondylosis in the Nepalese population is slightly higher than in the Caucasian and contrary to other studies there is significantly lower prevalence of such degeneration among the Nepalese porters.