Lumbar Artificial Disc Replacement: J.H.

J.H. is a 27 year old gentleman over a year of neck pain and severe left arm pain that radiated into his middle finger. He has tried non-surgical treatments for over a year without improvement. XRAYs and CT demonstrated some mild degenerative collapse at C6-7. MRI demonstrated a disc herniation at C6-7 that was causing left C7 nerve root compression. Since he had not improved after over a year of non-surgical treatment and the nerve compression shown on MRI correlated with his pain, we decided to proceed with surgical treatment. We made the decision together to perform an artificial disc replacement to remove the diseased disc while maintaining motion by avoiding a fusion.

Pre-surgical XRAY, CT and MRI showing disc herniation at C6-7 with nerve root compression:

Post-surgical XRAY:

After surgery he went back to work the following week, his neck and radiating arm pain are now completely gone.