Summary
Thirty-two patients with severe cervical rheumatoid arthritis were investigated preoperatively with cervical myelography (CeM) and computed tomographic myelography (CTM). The severity of their clinical symptoms correlated excellently with a combination of the deformation of the spinal cord at the atlanto-axial level, the lateral dislocation of the cord at the same level, and the deformation of the cord at some lower cervical level. Obstructing softtissue excrescences seemed to have little significance. No correlation was found in this study between the deformation of the cord and the main findings of the plain films: the atlanto-axial subluxation (AAS), the vertical subluxation (VS), or their combination.
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Laasonen, E.M., Kankaanpää, U., Paukku, P. et al. Computed tomographic myelography (CTM) in atlanto-axial rheumatoid arthritis. Neuroradiology 27, 119–122 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00343781
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00343781