[Cervical disc herniation: problems in clinical diagnosis and neurosurgical treatment in 51 patients treated by Cloward's operation].

The surgical treatment of herniated cervical discs is more frequent than it was 20 years ago, great progress having been made in diagnosis and especially in surgical techniques. In particular, the anterior access route should be mentioned here. Nowadays over 90% of patients can be freed from radicular pain by an operation. In the present review, problems of clinical symptomatology and surgical treatment have been studied in 51 patients, who all underwent surgery using the classic Cloward technique. The results of the classic Cloward technique, as far as we can judge today, are comparable with those of anterior discectomy without interbody fusion. However, the indications of the two operations are somewhat different.