Morphometric Analysis and Clinical Significance of Cervical Vertebrae: Example of Turkey

Abstract

Objectives: The spine is the column that carries the weight of the head and the torso and contains the medulla spinalis that is a part of the Central Nervous System within the canal inside it. Changes occur in the anatomical structures of the vertebrae in cases of infections involving the vertebrae and fractures and deformities arising from traumatic or non-traumatic causes. The determination of such changes in the vertebrae is critically important in terms of treatment or surgical intervention. Morphometric measurements have an important place in the detection of these changes. Moreover, recently, cervical vertebral measurements have been used in sex identification, the preliminary diagnosis of genetic diseases and age identification. We aimed for the results of our study to support clinical interventions to be made in the cervical vertebrae, forensic medicine applications and anthropological applications as a reference in the literature. Methods: In the study, 54 cervical vertebrae in the form of dry bones belonging to the neck region were used as the material. Twenty-three different parameters were measured with a digital caliper at a precision 0.01 mm. Results: Measurements were made on 31 C3-C6, 7 C7, 8 C1 and 8 C2 vertebrae. The mean measurement values were determined as a corpus vertebrae height (anterior) of 17.26±2.10 mm, a corpus vertebrae length (posterior) of 14.81±2.02 mm, a right lamina arcus vertebrae length of 13.34±2.11 mm, a diagonal foramen vertebrale length of 20.21±1.60 mm, a distance between the farthest points of massa lateralis atlantis of 73.99 (66.86-86.94) mm, and a transverse corpus vertebrae diameter of 25.03±4.35 mm. Conclusion: In the cervical vertebral measurements of the Turkish population in our study, we observed that the results on corpus vertebrae height and transverse diameter varied based on races, and the measurements of the Turkish population were higher. In addition, low, medium and high positive-negative relationships were determined by performing correlation analysis between the vertebrae. Accordingly, we think that these analyses will be helpful in the preparation of the atlas and the drawing of vertebrae.