CNS Blog

Archive: Jul 2022

Klippel-Feil Syndrome. Congenital fusion. Cervical spinal cord & foraminal decompression in stages.

Klippel-Feil syndrome (KFS) is a condition that involves at-birth/congenital (autologous) fusion of some of the cervical vertebrae. That fusion causes acceleration of degenerative changes above and below the fused “block” of vertebrae, often leading to earlier cord compression. In this older man (aka “young retiree”) who I recently operated on with KFS, this was his […]

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Orientation of your lower lumbar joints and the implication for back pain: Abnormal “coronal orientation” of facet joints and a “pars defect”

The lower lumbar facet joints (illustrated below) are usually oriented at around 45 degrees between the side-on midline plane (“sagittal”; side-on perspective) and the front-on midline plane (“coronal”; front-on perspective). These lubricated ‘synovial’ joints help guide movements and also stabilise the spine, and prevent it from becoming misaligned (listhesis; “slipped”). The lumbar facet joints (a […]

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Nice range of motion following ‘hybrid’ (artificial disc + cage) anterior lumbar spinal reconstruction

This athletic man who also actively runs a large business enterprise had problems maintaining his quality of life from chronic progressive lumbar pain and sciatic symptoms. His two lowermost discs were quite degenerative as seen in the MRI image below (region of red dashed oval). We talked about his options and expectations. I put in […]

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