Radiological and Clinical Follow-up of Alpha-D Cervical Disk Prosthesis

Fusion surgery is applied to prevent segmental instability after surgery for cervical disk herniation. Motion-sparing surgeries have been developed to prevent adjacent segment disease after fusion surgery. Total disk replacement, one of these methods, has been applied in the cervical region for more than 20 years. We aimed to investigate the medium-term radiological and clinical outcomes of patients who had received Alpha-D disk prosthesis after cervical disk surgery, in terms of incidence of heterotopic ossification (HO) and other complications.

We included 33 patients (17 women and 16 men) diagnosed with single-level cervical disk herniation and who had received prosthesis after anterior discectomy. The average follow-up period was 36 (18-78) months. The patients were followed up postoperatively at month 4, year 1, and annually thereafter. Patients, who had Alpha-D cervical disk prosthesis (CDP) (Medikon, Turkey), were monitored via radiological (standard and dynamic X-ray) and clinical (visual analog scale [VAS] and neck disability index [NDI]) modalities. Dynamic X-ray images were evaluated by an independent radiologist for HO and prosthesis movement.

Mean patient age was 40 ± 6.88 years. HO was observed in 7 (21.21%) patients, 6 of which were men. Significant intersex differences were noted for HO and movement rates (p = 0.039). Clinically, the mean preoperative and post-operative NDI levels were 35.4 ± 3.9 and 4 ± 2, respectively, whereas the mean pre- and post-operative VAS levels were 7 ± 1 and 1 ± 1, respectively. There was a clinically significant postoperative improvement in all the patients. However, there was no significant difference between the patients with and without HO in terms of age, operation level, and mean pre- and postoperative VAS, and postoperative NDI levels (p > 0.05). Despite the fact that there was a significant difference (p = 0.038) in favor of patients without HO in terms of mean preoperative NDI levels, this was not considered clinically significant.

In the present study, all the patients demonstrated clinically significant improvement following CDP surgery. HO rate after CDP surgery was 21.21% in the medium term, and movement was preserved in 5 of the 7 patients with partial HO. The fact that the CDP design was based on the one-to-one reproduction of the movement segment in the cervical spine, might account for the underlying cause of success. However, these good results in the medium term may change in cases with long-term clinical follow-up.