Degenerative Cervical Spine Disease May Not Worsen Over Time, Study Says

Follow-up data on patients with degenerative disease of the upper (cervical) spinal vertebrae show little or no evidence of worsening degeneration over time — that’s according to a study that appears in the Feb. 15 issue of the journal Spine.

New research by Moon Soo Park, MD, and colleagues of Medical College of Hallym University, Republic of Korea, finds that for many patients with “unstable” cervical degenerative spondylolisthesis, observation may be a better choice than surgery.

“Our results suggest that the majority of these patients may be stable and do not develop progression of disease or catastrophic neurologic deficits,” they report. For more information, click here to read the full article.