What is cervical hypertrophy?

In daily life, many people's work requires them to maintain a posture for a long time, which will cause some harm to the health of their cervical spine. Among spinal diseases, spinal hypertrophy is a relatively common disease. When suffering from spinal hypertrophy, patients will experience cervical pain, dizziness, numbness of limbs and hands and other discomforts. Therefore, when these phenomena appear in our body, we should go to the hospital for examination and treatment in time.

What is cervical hypertrophy

The basic pathological change of cervical spondylosis is the degeneration of the intervertebral disc. The cervical vertebrae are located between the head and the thorax. The cervical intervertebral discs need to move frequently while bearing weight, and are prone to excessive minor trauma and strain, leading to illness.

The main pathological changes are:

Reason 1

In the early stage, the cervical intervertebral disc degeneration occurs, the water content of the nucleus pulposus decreases, and the fibers of the annulus fibrosus swell and become thicker, followed by hyaline degeneration and even rupture. After the cervical intervertebral disc degenerates, its resistance to pressure and tension decreases. When affected by the gravity of the head and the pulling force of the head-thoracic muscles, the degenerated intervertebral disc may bulge outward locally or extensively, causing the intervertebral disc space to narrow, the articular processes to overlap and dislocate, and the longitudinal diameter of the intervertebral foramen to decrease. Due to the weakening of the traction resistance of the intervertebral disc, when the cervical spine moves, the stability between adjacent vertebrae decreases and intervertebral instability occurs, the range of motion between the vertebral bodies increases and the vertebral bodies have slight slippage, followed by bone hyperplasia of the posterior facet joints, uncovertebral joints and vertebral lamina, degeneration of the yellow ligament and nuchal ligament, and changes such as cartilage and ossification.

Reason 2

As the cervical intervertebral disc bulges outward, the surrounding tissues (such as the anterior and posterior longitudinal ligaments) and the vertebral periosteum can be lifted up, forming a gap between the vertebral body and the protruding intervertebral disc and the lifted ligament tissue, called the "interligament disc space", in which tissue fluid accumulates. Coupled with the bleeding caused by minor injuries, this bloody fluid becomes organized and then calcified and ossified, thus forming osteophytes. The relaxation of the anterior and posterior ligaments of the vertebral body makes the cervical spine unstable, which increases the chance of trauma and causes the osteophytes to gradually increase.