A comprehensive evaluation of cervical spine surgery outcomes

Aim: study of diagnostic value of different assessment scales to evaluate outcomes of surgeries in degenerative and post-injury deformities of cervical spine. Material and Methods. Between January and December 2015, 110 consecutive patients with degenerative and traumatic lesions of cervical spine were selected for surgery and results of treatment were followed. Preoperatively and 12 months postoperatively the patients filled in a questionnaire that included a VAS, Odom''s scale, NDI, modified JOAand the Zung Depression Scale. To assess the results of the intervention, the concept of "effect size" was used. Distribution of different scores classified according to Odom''s criteria as excellent/good and fair/poor. Results. All scores improved in all group of patients. For VAS, NDI and modified JOA scores the effect size was largest. NDI, JOAand ZDS seemed to correlate well with the classification of outcome by Odom. Conclusion. It is suggested many scales to assess the outcomes of the cervical spine surgery based on different criteria; nevertheless, there are no generally accepted and validated methods that can be used to analysis the outcome of cervical spine surgery. We conclude that investigated