Evidence Hub

Anterior cervical corpectomy decompression and fusion for cervical kyphosis in a girl with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome: A case report

Fang H, Liu PF, Ge C, Zhang WZ, Shang XF, Shen CL, He R

World journal of clinical cases, 2019

9 citations

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Spinal deformities in Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS; type VI) are generally progressive and severe. Surgical treatment has been described for kyphoscoliosis in the thoracolumbar spine. However, there are few studies describing the consequences of an anterior approach in cervical kyphosis. An anterior approach may not be able to fully decompress the spinal canal and restore the normal curvature of the cervical spine. Therefore, the anterior approach for cervical kyphosis in young children is hard. We describe the first case in an EDS girl with cervical kyphosis who received satisfactory anterior cervical corpectomy decompression and fusion.

CASE SUMMARY: The chief complaints of a 16-year-old girl with EDS were double upper limb weakness for 7 years and double lower limb walking instability for 2 years. Moreover, the imaging results revealed that the degree of kyphosis from cervical vertebra 2 to 4 accompanying with spinal cord compression was 30°. An anterior cervical corpectomy involving cervical vertebra 3 and a titanium mesh implant were performed with internal fixation. The results at 3 mo after surgery demonstrated that the anterior fusion was solid, and the kyphosis of the cervical spine was corrected. Additionally, the power of all four extremities was significantly improved.

CONCLUSION: The incidence rate of cervical kyphosis in EDS is rare. The surgical treatment for these patients, especially an anterior approach, is challenging. Therefore, to develop…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a case report, done in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free