Rick Sasso, MD

In an earlier blog, I talked about the AO Spine International meeting that I presented at in December. With this blog entry, I wanted to define a few of the terms that were used. These were spine surgery topics that I presented on.

One term is cervical myelopathy. In defining cervical myelopathy – first I will define myelopathy. When the word myelopathy is used it refers to any condition that affects the spinal cord. Therefore cervical myelopathy is a condition of the cervical (neck) area of the spinal cord. In respect to cervical myelopathy it means that there is compression on the spinal cord that is either a result of disc herniation or spinal stenosis. Cervical myelopathy is a degenerative spine disease that is more common in the elderly. 

Another term used in the blog entry was cervical radiculopathy. The term radiculopathy refers to a disease of the spine nerve roots and spinal nerves.  Cervical radiculopathy is when a spinal nerve root in the neck (cervical) is compressed and/or irritated. This can be caused by disc herniation, spinal stenosis or other degenerative spine disorders.