Neurophysiological Monitoring during Cervical Spine Surgeries: Longitudinal Costs and Outcomes

Cervical spine surgeries are among the most frequent and expensive procedures performed in the United States. They commonly address disabling neck pain that fails to respond to more conservative measures, through removal of removal of part or all of the damaged disc, sometimes followed by fusion of adjacent vertebrae with fixation using metallic implants (Irwin et al., 2005). Due to proximity of neural structures, the risks of cervical spine surgery include paralysis from spinal cord injury (iatrogenic myelopathy) and damage to exiting cervical nerve roots resulting in loss of function in the hands or arms (iatrogenic radiculopathy) (Cheung and Luk, 2016).

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