Effect of age and gender on anterior cervical plating

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the effect of age and gender on anterior cervical plating (ACP) in light of radiological findings. Methods: The degree of lordosis angle was calculated using the posterior tangent method both in early (one month) and late postoperative period (6–12 months) and the difference between pre- and post-operative values was accepted as the degree of lordosis correction. The results were compared between patients below and over 45 years and between males and females. Interbody height was measured as the distance between the upper-end plate of the superior vertebral body and the lower-end plate of the inferior vertebral body. Based on this distance, both segmental height loss (mm) and the degree of total height loss (%) were calculated and were compared between groups. Results: The mean degree of lordosis correction was higher in the ACDF-CP group than in the ACDF-CA group and was higher in women than men in the ACDF-CP group compared to the control group. Moreover, the mean degree of lordosis correction was higher in patients aged below 45 years compared to patients aged over 45 years. Similarly, segmental height loss was lower in the ACDF-CP group compared to the ACDF-CA group, in women compared to men, and in patients aged below 45 years compared to patients aged over 45 years. Conclusions: The implementation of ACDF-CP provided more beneficial outcomes compared to ACDF-CA with regard to lordosis correction and graft height loss. Moreover, ACDF-CP provided more favorable effects in women than in men and in patients aged below 45 years than in patients aged over 45 years.