Experience and Benefits of Using a Pre-drilled Screw Hole before Placing Anterior Cervical Plates in 330 Consecutive Patients during Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion

摘要

Objective: The use of pre-drilled pilot holes to accurately place and fix anterior cervical plates (ACP) is not established in the literature. Despite the usefulness of ACP after anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF), there remain challenges to their precise placement and alignment, which could encroach and affect the adjacent level. Authors describe a technique of the precise placement of the shortest available ACP after one-level ACDF.