Uncertainties

How much clinical improvement will I see?

If your surgery is being undertaken for pain radiating into your arm (due to nerve root compression), perhaps combined with some altered sensation or muscle weakness, there is a good chance of significant improvement and potentially complete resolution of these problems. However, if the nerve root affected has been badly compressed this might affect the degree of improvement that you see. Symptoms of pain usually improve very well but loss of sensation or weakness can be more resistant and slow to improve.

As with any form of surgery for neck pain, there is always some uncertainty about how much your symptoms will improve. In general, and this applies to any of the possible operations for neck pain, there is some likelihood that your symptoms will not settle completely depending on many different individual and personal factors. However, Mr Boeree will only suggest surgery if he considers that there is a good prospect of a real improvement in your symptoms, such that you feel that surgery was worthwhile. Nevertheless, it is always sensible to be prepared for some persisting symptoms or indeed to feel that your condition has not improved at all. There is even a very small risk that your symptoms could be made worse.

Will the disc replacement wear out?

Cervical artificial disc replacements have not been performed long enough for medical scientists to obtain entirely reliable information on this point. We know that joint replacements in the hip and the knee do have finite lives, but the mechanics of these joints are far more demanding. Exhaustive laboratory testing of the M6-C disc replacement suggests that wear should not be a problem. Nonetheless, the long-term outlook is still unknown. For this reason, Mr Boeree will ask to see all patients having cervical artificial disc replacement at regular intervals to check that there are no problems developing.

Can changes still occur at the operated level?

Although the disc replacement should not change the small joints at the back of the spine, the facet joints may potentially undergo some change over time and this can occasionally give rise to symptoms.

Does disc replacement avoid the risk of transferring stress to other levels?

The aim of disc replacement is to allow movement to occur at the treated level and this should avoid overloading other levels of the spine. Of course, degeneration can still occur at other parts of the spine, yet the specific advantage of disc replacement over spinal fusion is that it should not increase this risk. Indeed, by restoring the profile and movement of the cervical spine the risk of adjacent level disease may be lower than if you did not have surgery.

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