Clinical Efficacy Analysis of the New PRUNUS Spine Plate System for Anterior Cervical Spine Surgery.

Objective: Although the role of anterior cervical titanium plate system in stabilizing the spine sequence and promoting bone graft fusion has been widely recognized, more and more attention has been paid to the design of the plate itself and the complications caused by it. In order to solve the problems of poor stability of internal fixation, plate displacement and screw looseness, we designed the new PRUNUS spine plate system. Hence, the present study was conducted to describe observe and evaluate the clinical efficacy of a new type of three-leaf reinforced cervical anterior screw plate system (PRUNUS nailing system) developed for anterior cervical surgery.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of 56 patients from June 2018 to October 2019 was used. Twenty-seven patients with cervical spine disease treated with new PRUNUS nail plate internal fixation were selected as the observation group, and 29 patients with cervical spine disease treated with conventional cervical anterior screw fixation were selected as the control group. Postoperative follow-up was performed. Cervical stability, internal fixation position and bone graft fusion were evaluated according to imaging data. The operative time, intraoperative blood loss, cervical Cobb angle, pain visual analogue scale (VAS), and Japanese orthopaedic association (JOA) were compared between the two groups. Spinal function scores and neurological improvement rates were used to evaluate the clinical efficacy of the new PRUNUS spine plate.

Results: The patients were followed up for 5-18 months, with an average of 7.33 months. The average operative time of the observation group was 98.4 ± 9.2 min, and the mean intraoperative blood loss was 65.3 ± 10.6 ml, which were significant different from the control group's 109.7 ± 9.4 minutes (P < 0.05), 72.9 ± 15.6 ml (P < 0.05). Comparison between the two groups in postoperative and final follow-up of cervical Cobb angle, JOA score and improvement rate, VAS score and preoperative comparison showed no significant differences (P > 0.05).

Conclusion: The new PRUNUS spine plate system can be applied to the anterior cervical spine surgery, and its clinical efficacy was similar to the traditional cervical anterior plate. But PRUNUS simplified the operation process, especially suitable for the surgical treatment of anterior cervical revision and osteoporosis patients.