title: Post laminoplasty cervical kyphosis-Case report.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cervical kyphosis is a progressive cervical sagittal plane deformity that may cause a reduction in the ability to look horizontally, breathing and swallowing difficulties, sense of thoracic oppression and social isolation. Moreover, cervical kyphosis can cause myelopathy due to a direct compression by osteo-articular structures on the spinal cord or to a transitory ischaemic injury. The treatment of choice is surgery. The goals of surgery are: nervous structures decompression, cervical and global sagittal balance correction and vertebral stabilization and fusion.
  
  
  METHODS
  In October 2008 a 35 years old woman underwent surgical removal of a cervical-bulbar ependymoma with C1-C5 laminectomy and a C2-C5 laminoplasty. Five months after surgery, the patient developed a kyphotic posture, with intense neck and scapular girdle pain. The patients had a flexible cervical kyphosis. Therefore, we decided to perform an anterior surgical approach. We performed a corpectomy C4-C5 in order to achieve the anterior decompression; we placed a titanium expansion mesh.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Cervical kyphosis can be flexible or fixed. Some authors have reported the use of anterior surgery only for flexible cervical kyphosis as discectomy and corpectomy. This approach is useful for anterior column load sharing however it is not required for deformity correction.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The anterior approach is a good surgical option in flexible cervical kyphosis. It is of primary importance the sagittal alignment of the cervical spine in order to decompress the nervous structures and to guarantee a long-term stability.
authors.affiliation: Department of neurology and psychiatry. Neurosurgical division, University of Rome "Sapienza", Italy. Electronic address: demodugoni@gmail.com.
authors.forename: D E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Dugoni
authors.affiliation: Department of neurology and psychiatry. Neurosurgical division, University of Rome "Sapienza", Italy.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mancarella
authors.affiliation: Department of neurology and psychiatry. Neurosurgical division, University of Rome "Sapienza", Italy.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Landi
authors.affiliation: Department of neurology and psychiatry. Neurosurgical division, University of Rome "Sapienza", Italy.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tarantino
authors.affiliation: Department of neurology and psychiatry. Neurosurgical division, University of Rome "Sapienza", Italy.
authors.forename: A G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Ruggeri
authors.affiliation: Department of neurology and psychiatry. Neurosurgical division, University of Rome "Sapienza", Italy.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Delfini
keywords: Cervical laminectomy; Cervical myelopathy; Kyphosis