Relief for hundreds of thousands of Americans suffering intractable neck pain may soon be available – without losing the ability to look left and right.
John C. Lincoln Deer Valley Hospital orthopaedic surgeon William R. Stevens, MD, has implanted one of Arizona's first PRESTIGE® Cervical Discs, an artificial disc approved July 19 by the federal Food and Drug Administration to replace discs which have become diseased and dysfunctional.
Spinal discs, which are located between and cushion the spinal bones (vertebrae), are made of a tough outer layer and a gel-like center. Disc disease or significant disc damage due to injury is a very common cause of serious spine problems. Often part of the aging process, disc degeneration can be exacerbated by injury, and it can be extremely painful. Pain can come from the damaged discs themselves, or it may be caused when the discs or adjacent vertebrae impinge on nearby nerve roots of the spinal cord.
Currently, the most common form of surgery for treating cervical degenerative disc disease is cervical spine fusion. Approximately 200,000 cervical procedures are performed each year to relieve compression on the spinal cord or nerve root and to implant a metal plate to rigidly fuse the vertebrae together. While this procedure often relieves pain, it virtually eliminates mobility, the ability to turn one’s head.
The PRESTIGE® disc is designed to maintain motion and flexibility while replacing a diseased disc that is removed from a patient’s cervical (neck) spine.
"This offers a wonderful solution for patients with severe neck and/or arm pain associated with herniated discs or degenerative disc disease such as bone spurs pushing on spinal nerves," Dr. Stevens said. "The PRESTIGE® disc can both relieve pain and maintain cervical motion. People can continue to do all the things they could do before surgery, and that’s really good news for people who are currently suffering."
The PRESTIGE® Cervical Disc replaces a diseased or damaged disc and is designed to preserve motion. Made of stainless steel, the device has two articulating components (a ball on top and a trough on the bottom) that are inserted into the disc space and attached to the vertebral bodies on either side. These components function like a joint, replicating the physiological motion (flexion, extension, side bending and rotation) and alignment (height and curvature) of a natural intervertebral disc. It is available in a variety of sizes that allow surgeons to closely match a patient's anatomy.