Dr.Romero Gaitan, your neurosurgeon and I reviewed your CD scans, finding that you have developed a “Swan neck” deformity in your cervical spine because the plate and screws placed to hold your spine stable when the doctors did the first surgery on you, were not removed when you went back home after our procedure in Tijuana, and with your bones normal growth in the neck, the plate acted “Anchoring” the growth of the body of your vertebrae, preventing them to grow in the anterior aspect of the C3, C4, C5 and C6. Vertebral bodies. That swan neck curvature narrowed your spinal canal pressing your spinal cord, preventing recovery and creating a cyst also in your cord. In order to fix that it will be necessary first to remove the plate and screws, to correct the swan neck curvature by operating your spine adding an artificial vertebra made with a titanium cage and bone grafts. Once that first surgery heals giving you a normal cervical curvature, it will be followed by a new set of scans to see how much the spinal canal opened when correcting the curvature decompressing your cord. If the spinal cord looks still compressed, a new decompression surgery of the spinal cord and stem cell implantation on the affected segments will benefit the recovery of your cord.
Even the fact that your spinal cord has been pressed for many years now, we think that recovery of your cord will be a possibility. We have a French Canadian patient that after 27 years of having his spinal cord pressed by a spinal fracture, he sowed recovery after the decompression surgery.
Please let us know about your questions and suggestions once you have talked to Dr. Layard and your physicians back at home.
Kind Regards.
Dr. Romero Gaitan. Neurosurgeon. Dr. Ramirez del Rio. Trauma Surgeon and Medical Director.