Risk factors in cervical spondylosis

BackgroundCervical spondylosis is essentially a degenerative disorder common after fourth decade. It has been seen that radiological evidence of cervical spondylosis do not necessarily co-relate with clinical findings. This discrepancy has been attributed to the morphometric dimensions of the vertebrae, age, sex, race, occupation, weight and height of the patients.ObjectiveThe objective of this study is to co-relate the variables like age, sex, race, occupation, vertebral body diameter, canal diameter, canal body ratio of cervical spine vertebrae with cervical spondylosis cases with normal population.MethodsIn this hospital based, case control, consent based, cross-sectional, clinico-radiological study 200 individuals (controls-100, cases-100) who were subjected to lateral projection radiographs of cervical spine. Their age, sex, race, occupation, height, weight and mid-sagittal canal diameter (CD), sagittal vertebral body diameter (VBD) and the canal-body ratio (CBR) of the cervical vertebrae was recorded and analyzed statistically.ResultsThere was no relation between vertebral dimensions and clinical groups. In radiculopathy group, age and height showed significance on univariate analysis. While only age remained significant on multivariate analysis. In neck pain group age, sex, and height showed significance on univariate analysis while in multivariate analysis age, sex and occupation were significant risk factors.