Surgery May Raise Swallowing Risks

Researchers wanted to know why some people had more trouble swallowing after neck spine surgery. They looked at many medical records. The team compared two types of surgery. One type used a single disc space. The other type used two or more in a row.

The team found that the bigger surgery was tied to higher risk. People who had multilevel surgery had more swallowing problems. The single level group had some risk too. Both groups started with similar trouble. The rates were both 14 percent. The gap was not seen as important.

Of 1705 patients, 804 had one level surgery. That was 47.2 percent. The other 901 had multilevel surgery. That was 52.8 percent. The multilevel group had higher rates later. At one month, the rate was 64 percent. The other group was 54 percent. At three months, the rates were 32 and 25. At twelve months, they were 29 and 21.

For one level surgery, the team found several risk factors. These were race, a higher office risk score, longer symptoms, old swallowing trouble, diabetes, poor leg blood flow, and C3-4 surgery. Each was linked to an independent risk within twelve months.