Cervical Vertebral Myelopathy (Wobbler) Surgery: Indications, Technique and Outcomes

The main indication for surgical treatment of ataxia in horses is a compressive lesion of the cervical spinal cord that is causing the clinical signs. A strict case selection protocol is essential. If the clinical and neurological examination establishes that the horse is suffering from a neurological gait deficit that is caused by a lesion in the cervical spinal cord, plain radiographs of the cervical vertebral column are taken. In most cases the site of compression is not obvious but some indication of the likelihood of compression may be obtained using the inter- and intra-vertebral minimum sagittal diameter ratio measurements (Mayhew and Green 2000). Although Hahn et al (2008) reported that these ratios are predictive of the site of compression, the author’s data comparing these ratios with myelographic results showed that the ratios are poor predictors of the site of compression but reasonably good predictors that the horse is likely to have a cervical compressive lesion somewhere (Luker 2005). […]