Although cervical disk replacement has been used for a decade, and despite a large number of implanted artificial disks, the cost effectiveness of this technique remains debated, and only few reports present follow-ups exceeding 2 years. This work focuses on cervical arthroplasty publications reporting a followup of more than 2 years. Patient selection, implant type and surgical technique seem to influence greatly the quality of the clinical and radiological results. Wear debris and occurrence of heterotopic ossifications around the implant are frequently reported. The progressive decrease in the range of motion of the prosthetic level observed in most long-term studies does not seem to have any influence on the clinical evolution. It seems reasonable to say that cervical disk prosthesis is not inferior to discectomy and fusion, probably slightly superior in terms of neck pain, and that these implants allow a short-term preservation of cervical mobility. Their efficacy in preventing adjacent segment disease is still being assessed and will determine the cost/effectiveness ratio of cervical disk replacement. Abbreviations: FU: Follow-up; ACDF: Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion; TDR: Total disk replacement; HO: Heterotopic ossifications; ROM: Range of motion; NSAID: Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs; PE: Polyethylene; ASD: Adjacent segment deterioration.

Background: The importance of sagittal plane alignment in adults involves both spinal and pelvic parameters. Most papers published in this field have studied white people and, to the best of our knowledge, there are only few studies on Asians and none in south Indian population. Materials and methods: Prospective study of 120 healthy individuals done in Sri Ramachandra Medical college, Chennai, India, from August 2012 to June 2014. The study was conducted in the department of spinal surgery at our center with the approval of the ethical committee. Informed consent was obtained from all volunteers. Inclusion criteria were healthy individuals more than 18 years of age both male and female. Exclusion criteria were those who had any kind of spine or hip surgery, carriers of any type of musculoskeletal syndrome, or had a pelvic limb discrepancy (2 cm). The following items like age, sex and lateral radiographs of the lumbosacral region with the individual standing, so as to obtain the pelvic parameters of PT, SS and PI were collected. Results: The mean pelvic parameters in our study were pelvic tilt 14.20 ± 7.32, sacral slope 41.20 ± 11.01 and pelvic incidence 58.64 ± 12.59. Conclusion: The pelvic parameters vary between different ethnicity was evident from our study. However, pelvic parameters of south Indian population have shown some similarity to the Mexican population.

Biodegradable implants degrade in a biologic environment. The use of bioabsorbable implants in spine surgery is expanding at a rapid pace. Their future as a carrier of biological agents, such as bone morphogenetic proteins and bone graft extenders, their radiolucency, and their eventual resorption make them an ideal implant for use in spinal degenerative disease. For spine fixation, ideally these implants should have mechanical characteristics equal to those of standard metal implants and would degrade with the healing process, so that fixation is not lost before adequate healing and load is gradually transferred to the healing tissue. Several new experimental bioabsorbable devices are in the process of consideration as spinal implants. These include a myriad of posterior lumbar interbody fusion devices, anterior spinal plates, and a variety of screw and mesh designs.

A 28-year-old male presented with recurrent spinal space occupying lesion who was treated with antitubercular medications in suspicion of granulomatous lesion before. He underwent surgical excision and histopathology with immunohistochemistry was confirmative of extranodal-spinal Rosai-Dorfman disease.