Takashi Hirai, Toshitaka Yoshii, Narihito Nagoshi, Kazuhiro Takeuchi, Kanji Mori, Shuta Ushio, Akio Iwanami, Tsuyoshi Yamada, Shoji Seki, Takashi Tsuji, Kanehiro Fujiyoshi, Mitsuru Furukawa, Soraya Nishimura, Kanichiro Wada, Takeo Furuya, Yukihiro Matsuyama, Tomohiko Hasegawa, Katsushi Takeshita, Atsushi Kimura, Masahiko Abematsu, Hirotaka Haro, Tetsuro Ohba, Masahiko Watanabe, Hiroyuki Katoh, Kei Watanabe, Hiroshi Ozawa, Haruo Kanno, Shiro Imagama, Kei Ando, Shunsuke Fujibayashi, Masao Koda, Masashi Yamazaki, Morio Matsumoto, Masaya Nakamura, Atsushi Okawa, Yoshiharu Kawaguchi
BACKGROUND: In patients with ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) in the cervical spine, it is well known that the thoracic ossified lesions often coexist with the cervical lesions and can cause severe myelopathy. However, the prevalence of OPLL at each level of the thoracic and lumbar spinal segments is unknown. The aims of this study were to investigate how often OPLL occurs at each level in the thoracolumbar spine in patients with a radiological diagnosis of cervical OPLL and to identify the spinal levels most likely to develop ossification...
April 5, 2018: BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders