title: Radiographic Comparison between Cervical Spine Lateral and Whole-Spine Lateral Standing Radiographs.
abstract: Study Design Retrospective radiologic study. Objective The sagittal alignment of the cervical spine can be evaluated using either a lateral cervical radiograph or a whole-spine lateral view on which the cervical spine is included. To our knowledge, however, no report has compared the two. The purpose of this work is to identify the difference in radiographic parameters between the cervical spine lateral view and the whole-spine lateral view. Methods We retrospectively analyzed 59 adult patients suffering from neck pain with cervical spine lateral radiographs and whole-spine lateral radiographs from November 2007 to December 2011. The radiographs were measured using standard techniques to obtain the following parameters from the two different radiographs: occipital-C2 angle, C2-C7 angle, C7-sternal angle, sternal slope, T1 slope, C2 central offset distance, the distance between C2 and C7 plumb lines, C4 anteroposterior (AP) diameter, the ratio of C2 central off distance to C4 AP diameter, the ratio of plumb lines' distance to C4 AP diameter. Results We found that the occipital-C2 angle, sternal slope, and C4 AP diameter were similar, but the C2-C7 angle, C7-sternal angle, T1 slope, C2 central offset distance, distance between C2 and C7 plumb lines, ratio of C2 central off distance to C4 AP diameter, and ratio of plumb lines' distance to C4 AP diameter were different. However, the error of measurement was greater than the small angular and linear differences between the two views. Conclusions Most numerical values of the measured radiographic parameters appear to be different between the two views. However, the two views are comparable because the numerical differences were smaller than the errors of measurement.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, Medical College of Hallym University, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Moon Soo
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Seong-Hwan
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Moon
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, Medical College of Hallym University, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Tae-Hwan
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, Medical College of Hallym University, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jae Keun
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Oh
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, Medical College of Hallym University, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hwa Jun
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: Washington University Orthopedics, BJC Institute of Health at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, United States.
authors.forename: K Daniel
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Riew
keywords: cervical spine lateral radiograph; radiographic comparison; whole-spine lateral radiograph