[fortitudine]

Hi KL

Your surgical recommendations are almost identical to mine! I have cord compression at c3/4 and 4/5. Surgeon #1 - the local guy, which means 'free' here in Canada - wants to do a posterior (ouch!) plated 3-level fusion (including c2/3 since 'the level above usually goes and it would be easier to do it now'). He had no ADR experience at the time, in fact the first 25-person trial for the Bryan was just starting here.

Surgeon #2 (USA) offered ACD at 3/4 and ACDF at 4/5 as there is a possible instability there. (Different radiologists disagree)

Surgeon #3 (Europe) offered 2-level ADR with slight possibility of having to fuse 4/5.

Surgeon #4 was a sort of half-baked consult and he offered 1 level ADR and one level ACDF if I remember correctly

I'm guessing that your surgeon #2 might be the one I consulted in California, He is in his early 60s. When I called his assistant to say I wasn't going ahead with him, he called me himself to warn me away from ADR.

In any case, that was early 2005, and a year and a half later I have done nothing, although I had decided to go with ADR and surgeon #3. Circumstances have forced me to reschedule or cancel 4 or 5 times!

Meanwhile there is a neurosurgeon in Canada who has collaborated with surgeon #3 on papers, and is doing 2-level cervical ADR ( five or six to date). I sent him my films for a consult months ago. Perhaps by the time he looks at them I will be able to get ADR for free in Canada!