Quantifying in Vivo Cervical Spine Kinematics: Validation of a Novel Data Collection and Processing Pipeline

Intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration is a condition that affects a vast majority of the aging population. IVD is characterized by the decay of the joints between vertebrae and may result in pain and disability. Studying spinal kinematics has proven effective for evaluating the outcomes of surgical procedures aimed at mediating with the effects of IVD degeneration, such as cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) and cervical total disc arthroplasty (cTDA). However, quantifying and analyzing cervical IVD kinematics represents a challenging task when examining biomechanics of the neck. This study presents a novel data collection and processing pipeline aimed at quantifying in-vivo kinematics of the cervical spine with high-speed biplanar videoradiography (HSBV). A cadaveric pilot study was conducted to test the viability and accuracy of this methodology. Accuracy, defined as the error with respect to radiostereometric analysis (RSA) (the “gold standard”), was calculated as 1.39±0.58° in rotational error and 0.97±0.74 mm in translational error. A separate experiment was implemented to validate the RSA. It was determined that RSA techniques present accuracies of 0.09±0.01 mm and 0.35±0.05 deg/sec. The development of this valuable tool to analyze and measure the in vivo kinematics of the cervical spine will enable further understanding of cervical spine kinematics following cTDA and ACDF.

Year	Entry
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Year

Entry

1980

Spoor CW, Veldpaus FE. Rigid body motion calculated from spatial co-ordinates of markers. J Biomech. 1980;13(4):391-393.

1996

Antoniou J, Steffen T, Nelson F, Winterbottom N, Hollander AP, Poole RA, Aebi M, Alini M. The human lumbar intervertebral disc: evidence for changes in the biosynthesis and denaturation of the extracellular matrix with growth, maturation, ageing, and degeneration. J Clin Invest. August 15, 1996;98(4):996-1003.

1996

Ebara S, Iatridis JC, Setton LA, Foster RJ, Mow VC, Weidenbaum M. Tensile properties of nondegenerate human lumbar anulus fibrosus. Spine. March 15, 1996;21(4):452-461.

1992

Osti OL, Vernon-Roberts B, Moore R, Fraser RD. Annular tears and disc degeneration in the lumbar spine: a post-mortem study of 135 discs. J Bone Joint Surg. September 1992;74B(5):678-682.

2014

Anderst W. In Vivo Cervical Spine Kinematics, Arthrokinematics and Disc Loading in Asymptomatic Control Subjects and Anterior Fusion Patients [PhD thesis]. University of Pittsburgh; 2014.