Should planning of cervical pedicle screws be race specific? Computed tomography–based morphometric analysis

Abstract

Introduction: The neurovascular surgical structures are protected by quantitative understanding of cervical pedicle morphology and aiding in better surgical outcome. Aim of the study is to do morphometric analysis of subaxial cervical pedicle by noncomputerized computed tomography (CT) scans. Materials and Methods: From 50 volunteers, a total of 500 cervical pedicles were evaluated using axial and sagittal CT scan. Five parameters such as outer pedicle width (OPW), inner pedicle width (IPW), pedicle height (PH), pedicle transverse angle (PTA) and pedicle axis length (PAL) were analyzed. Result: OPW, IPW, PH, and PAL show increase in values from C3 to C7, while PTA shows a decrease in value from C3 to C7. Conclusion: The cervical pedicle dimension of our study population was smaller than other studies carried out on Asian and European population. Hence, the planning for pedicle screw fixation should be race specific.