Comparative Analysis of the 3 Cervical Vertebral Bone Quality (C-VBQ) Score Methodologies and Their Correlations to the Lumbar Vertebral Bone Quality (VBQ) Score

Abstract

ObjectiveCommon complications after spinal fusion, such as pseudoarthrosis, cage subsidence, or instrumentation failure, are affected by patients’ bone quality. The cervical-vertebral bone quality (C-VBQ) score, a magnetic resonance imaging-based adaption of the lumbar vertebral bone quality (VBQ) score, was developed by three separate research groups simultaneously to evaluate bone quality in cervical spinal fusion patients. We present the first analysis comparing these scoring methods to the well-validated VBQ score. MethodsA retrospective analysis of data for consecutive patients who underwent spine surgery at a single institution was completed. The VBQ score was calculated using the Ehresman et al. method. The C-VBQ scores, named according to placement of the region of interest within the cerebral spinal fluid, were calculated separately using the methods of Soliman et al. (C2-VBQ), Razzouk et al. (C5-VBQ), and Huang et al. (T1-VBQ). Linear regression models were utilized to evaluate correlations to the VBQ score. ResultsA total of 105 patients were identified (mean age, 57.0±11.9years; women, 50.5%). Mean scores were C2-VBQ, 2.37±0.55; C5-VBQ, 2.36±0.61; and T1-VBQ, 2.64±0.68. The C-VBQ scores for the C2 level were significantly higher than those for the C3-C6 levels (3.18±0.96 vs. 2.63±0.77, P<.001), whereas the C7 level was found to have significantly lower C-VBQ scores (2.42±0.78 vs. 2.63±0.77, P=.04). The C2-VBQ (r=0.63) score had the strongest correlation to the VBQ score, compared to C5-VBQ (r=0.41) and T1-VBQ (r=0.43) (P<.001). ConclusionThis study demonstrates that the C2-VBQ had the strongest correlation to the lumbar VBQ score among all C-VBQ scores.