Description

ABSTRACT

This study evaluated and compared the parameters of the cervical spine of apparently healthy volunteers and symptomatic Nigerian patients. This was a cross-sectional two-part study; lateral radiographs of ninety-nine (99; 47 males, 52 females) symptomatic patients and one hundred (100; 62 males, 38 females) apparently healthy volunteers were studied. The parameters evaluated were the clivoaxial angle (CAA), the cervical disc height (CDH), the cervical spine angle (CSA), the cervical curvature index (CCI) and the cervical Torg ratio (Tr). The statistical tools used were SPSS 23.0 and Minitab 18.1.  Results showed that the cervical disc height was higher in the apparently healthy subjects than the symptomatic patients and it showed a gradual increase from C2-C3 to C6-C7. This difference could be as a result of early-stage disc degeneration resulting in the alteration of the normal anatomical presentation of the cervical spine in the symptomatic patients. Sexual dimorphism was more expressed in the measured parameters of the apparently healthy subjects. This could be due to possible variable effects of the underlining clinical condition for which the patient reported to the hospital for. The mean Clivoaxial angle (CAA) and mean cervical spine angle (CSA) of the females were higher than the males in both groups. This study showed that there are significant differences in the dimensions of the Cervical spine between the apparently healthy subjects and symptomatic patients in the Nigerian population, hence data considered as normative reference values gotten from symptomatic hospital records should be used with caution with respect to cervical spine in the Nigerian population.