Subtotal vertebrectomy and spinal fusion for multilevel cervical spondylotic myelopathy

Subtotal vertebrectomy and spinal fusion were carried out in 15 patients with multilevel cervical spondylotic myelopathy.Among 13 patients whom were followed-up for four to fourty-two months,10 showed marked improvement or improvement.The advantages of subtotal vertebrectomy and spinal fusion were:（1）direct anterior decompression at the disc level as well as body level, （2）low rate of nonunion of bone graft and（3）wider operative field allowing the use of surgical microscope and avoiding the damage to spinal cord and nerve roots.Two points were emphasized during operation:decompression of spinal cord should be complete and the bone graft should be inserted firmly.