The impact of preoperative neurological symptom severity on postoperative outcomes in cervical spondylotic myelopathy

Study Design: The study design is a retrospective cohort study.Objective: To compare patient-reported outcomes between patients with mild versus moderate-to-severe myelopathy following surgery for cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM).Summary of Background Data: Recent studies have demonstrated that decompression for CSM leads to improved quality of life when measured by patient-reported outcomes. However, it is unknown if preoperative myelopathy classification is predictive of superior postoperative improvements.Materials and Methods: A retrospective review of patients treated surgically for CSM at a single institution from 2014 to 2015 was performed. Preoperative myelopathy severity was c…