Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Oct 18, 2016; 7(10): 695-699
Published online Oct 18, 2016. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v7.i10.695
Laminar screw fixation in the subaxial cervical spine: A report on three cases
Hironori Tanabe, Yoichi Aota, Tomoyuki Saito
Hironori Tanabe, Tomoyuki Saito, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Yokohama City University, Yokohama 236-0004, Japan
Yoichi Aota, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Yokohama Stroke and Brain Center, Yokohama 235-0012, Japan
Author contributions: Tanabe H performed acquisition of data, analyses and interpretation of data and drafted the manuscript; Aota Y conceptualized and designed the study and also critical revised the manuscript; Saito T approved the final version for the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study has been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. This study has received approval from the authors’ institute review board.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from all patients.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors report no conflicts of interest concerning the materials or methods used in this study or the findings specified in this paper.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Hironori Tanabe, MD, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Yokohama City University, 3-9 Fukuura, Kanazawa-ku, Yokoham 236-0004, Japan. iamhiro1978@yahoo.co.jp
Telephone: +81-45-7872655 Fax: +81-45-7817922
Received: February 27, 2016
Peer-review started: February 28, 2016
First decision: June 12, 2016
Revised: June 25, 2016
Accepted: August 15, 2016
Article in press: August 16, 2016
Published online: October 18, 2016
Processing time: 228 Days and 11.6 Hours
Abstract

Although laminar screw fixation is often used at the C2 and C7 levels, only few previous case reports have presented the use of laminar screws at the C3-C6 levels. Here, we report a novel fixation method involving the use of practical laminar screws in the subaxial spine. We used laminar screws in the subaxial cervical spine in two cases to prevent vertebral artery injury and in one case to minimize exposure of the lamina. This laminar screw technique was successful in all three cases with adequate spinal rigidity, which was achieved without complications. The use of laminar screws in the subaxial cervical spine is a useful option for posterior fusion of the cervical spine.

Keywords: Laminar screw; Instrumentation; Subaxial cervical spine

Core tip: Laminar screw fixation is often used at the C2 and C7 levels, however, only few previous case reports have presented the use of laminar screws at the C3-C6 levels. In this article, the authors describe a novel fixation method involving the use of laminar screws in the subaxial spine with adequate spinal rigidity, which was achieved without complications.