By Laura Dyrda
A new meta-analysis published in Spine examines the randomized controlled trials involving cervical disc arthroplasty compared with anterior cervical discectomy and fusion for treating one-level cervical disc degeneration.
The researchers examined 18 randomized controlled trials for the meta-analysis. The research came from the PubMed database searching through October 2014. The researchers found:
1. There were longer operative times, more blood loss, lower neck and arm pain scores reported on the visual analog scale for the cervical disc arthroplasty group when compared with spinal fusion.