Open Door Laminoplasty: Creation Of A New Vertebral Arch.

BACKGROUND: We describe the carrying out of our open door laminoplasty technique by reproducing a posterior vertebral arch using a local originating autologous bony graft and titanium plates.

METHODS: We designed a prospective study and present our first 16 patients. The clinical results were evaluated with the JOA score, Nurick scale and the VAS. The functional and radiological evaluation was performed with radiographs, CT and MRI, and the measurements of the dimensions of the spinal canal were carried out with the MIPAV programme ( Johns Hopkins University). All the variables were statistically analysed by means of SPSS23.0.

RESULTS: After following up the cases for two years, the clinical evaluation showed, amongst other findings, a 75% improvement in the JOA score, while the radiological controls showed an appropriate range of motion (ROM) along with the stability of the construction. The rate of complete arthrodesis of the cervical neo-arch reached was approximately 92%.

CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that the modifications that we performed on the technique originally described have made it into a simpler, more efficacious and safer procedure, without lessening its essential objectives.