Prospective multicenter cohort study across 12 North American centers enrolling 278 adults with symptomatic cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) confirmed on MRI. Patients were stratified as mild (mJOA ≥15), moderate (mJOA 12–14), or severe (mJOA <12) and followed for one year to assess functional, disability, and quality-of-life outcomes after surgical decompression with instrumented fusion.
When a patient presents with CSM of any severity — even mild (mJOA ≥15) — this study supports offering surgical decompression: functional gains are real across the full severity spectrum, and waiting for severe neurological deterioration does not improve the magnitude of non-mJOA outcomes.
Counsel patients that roughly 1 in 5 will experience a complication, most transient, and that dysphagia is the single most common adverse event after anterior cervical surgery in this population.
Prospective multicenter cohort study across 12 North American centers enrolling 278 adults with symptomatic cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) confirmed on MRI. Patients were stratified as mild (mJOA ≥15), moderate (mJOA 12–14), or severe (mJOA <12) and followed for one year to assess functional, disability, and quality-of-life outcomes after surgical decompression with instrumented fusion.
When a patient presents with CSM of any severity — even mild (mJOA ≥15) — this study supports offering surgical decompression: functional gains are real across the full severity spectrum, and waiting for severe neurological deterioration does not improve the magnitude of non-mJOA outcomes.
Counsel patients that roughly 1 in 5 will experience a complication, most transient, and that dysphagia is the single most common adverse event after anterior cervical surgery in this population.