Abstract
Cervical spine facet tropism (CFT) defined as the facets’ joints angles difference between right and left sides of more than 7 degrees. This study aims to investigate the relationship between cervical sagittal alignment parameters and cervical spine facets’ tropism.
A retrospective cross-sectional study carried out in a tertiary center where cervical spine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) radiographs of patients in orthopedics/spine clincs were included. They had no history of spine fractures. Images’ reports were reviewed to exclude those with tumors in the c-spine.
A total of 96 patients was included with 63% of them were females. The mean of age was 45.53± 12.82. C2-C7 cobb's angle (CA) and C2-C7 sagittal vertical axis (SVA) means were −2.85±10.68 and 1.51± 0.79, respectively. Facet tropism was found in 98% of the sample in at least one level on either axial or sagittal plane. Axial C 2–3 CFT and sagittal C4-5 were correlated with CA (r=0.246, P 0.043, r= −278, P 0.022), respectively. In addition, C2-C7 sagittal vertical axis (SVA) was moderately correlated with axial c2-3 FT (r= −0.330, P 0.006) Also, several significant correlations were detected in our model Cervical vertebral slopes and CFT at the related level. Nonetheless, high BMI was associated with multi-level and multiplane CFT with higher odd's ratios at the lower levels.
This study shows that CFT at higher levels is correlated with increasing CA and decreasing SVA and at lower levels with decreasing CA. Obesity is a risk factor for CFT.
