Anterior cervical osteophytes with multilevel disc prolapse causing progressive dysphagia and quadriparesis

摘要

An uncommon cause of progressive dysphagia may be large anterior cervical osteophytes impinging upon the cervical esophagus, more often when located opposite to a fixed point of esophagus at cricoid cartilage (C6) level. Osteophytes may cause inflammatory reaction around esophagus, causing edema and cricopharyngeal spasm. Large anterior osteophytes may also be found in conditions such as diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH), ankylosing spondylitis, infectious spondylitis, and following trauma.Though more than half of the people over the age of 60 years have osteophytes of vertebral bodies, they rarely cause symptoms of their own. An accurate diagnosis is necessary in order to successfully treat the associated symptoms and neurological abnormalities.