Abstract
Background
Cervical radiculopathy is the most common disease in the cervical spine, affecting patients around 50–55 year of age. An operative treatment is common clinical praxis when non-operative treatment fails. The controversy is in the choice of operative treatment, conducting either anterior cervical decompression and fusion or posterior foraminotomy. The study objective is to evaluate short- and long-term outcome of anterior cervical decompression and fusion (ACDF) and posterior foraminotomy (PF)
Methods
A multicenter prospective randomized controlled trial with 1:1 randomization, ACDF vs. PF including 110 patients. The primary aim is to evaluate if PF is non-inferior to ACDF using a non-inferiority design with ACDF as “active control.” The neck disability index (NDI) is the primary outcome measure, and duration of follow-up is 2 years.
Discussion
Due to absence of high level of evidence, the authors believe that a RCT will improve the evidence for using the different surgical treatments for cervical radiculopathy and strengthen current surgical treatment recommendation.
Trial registration
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04177849. Registered on November 26, 2019
A randomized controlled trial of intermittent Cervical Traction in sitting Vs. Supine position for the management of Cervical Radiculopathy
