Full Endoscopic Anterior Cervical Decompression & Fusion With Iliac Crest Dowel Graft

Abstract

Isolated discogenic cervical pain syndromes are somewhat difficult to treat. Many of these patients have underlying painful degenerative conditions of the cervical spine that do not meet accepted criteria for surgical treatments. Hence, many of these patients remain untreated or undergo interventional pain management procedures to meliorate the pain. The author presents a simple endoscopic outpatient method intended to treat a small subsection of this patient population complaining of isolated neck pain without any arm pain. Often these patients have end-stage degenerative cervical disc disease with near complete collapse with minimal associated foraminal stenosis. The author presents an endoscopic interbody fusion technique he has developed for these types for patients using an autograft bone dowel harvested from the iliac crest.

Keywords: Autograft, Cervical spine, Degenerative disc disease, Discogenic pain, Dowel graft, Endoscopic, Iliac crest graft, Minimally invasive, Outpatient surgery, Percutaneous.