Cervical Fusion Infection Symptoms

Intense neck pain and cervical instability can be caused by vertebrae that are either moving too much or are rubbing together. Problems with your vertebrae can be triggered by a neck injury or by a degenerative disease. One treatment option to relieve your pain and stabilize your neck is cervical fusion. If you undergo the procedure, you and your doctor will need to watch for cervical fusion infection symptoms during your recovery.

Cervical Fusion

• Cervical fusion is a surgical procedure in which the vertebrae in your neck are fused together. It is performed in a hospital operating room while you are under general anesthesia. During the surgery, your doctor will take bone, usually from your pelvis, and graft it to two vertebrae in your neck. The bone graft will cause the vertebrae to grow together, fusing them in place and stabilizing your neck. He might use metal screws or rods to secure the bone graft.

Risk of Infection

• Anytime you undergo surgery, you are at risk of developing an infection. The infection rate after surgery on the spine is less than 1 percent. After a cervical fusion procedure, you are at risk for an infection either at the incision site where the wound itself becomes infected, or deeper within your body. Those deeper infections can affect your spine and spinal cord. You can also develop infections in your lungs, bladder or kidneys.

Infection Symptoms

• Symptoms of an infection in your incision site include redness or swelling. The wound might be painful or feel hot to the touch. It might not heal and it could ooze pus. For deeper wounds that affect your spine and spinal cord after your cervical fusion, you could experience increasing pain in your neck and back that does not get better. Deeper infections might also need to be drained. As the infection gets worse, you might also experience chills, body aches and a fever.

Treatment

• Your doctor can prescribe antibiotics if you develop an infection after undergoing a cervical fusion procedure. If the infection is located at the incision site, she might need to drain the wound if it is oozing and then close it again. If the infection occurs at your vertebrae, then the grafted bone and any metal screws or rods used to hold it in place may need to be removed in order to completely clear the infection.

Considerations

• Cervical fusion is not usually the first treatment option your doctor will consider to treat your pain or stabilize your neck. It is usually considered only after less invasive options have been tried and have failed to provide relief. If an infection forces your doctor to remove the bone graft used to fuse your cervical vertebrae together, the surgery can be performed again at a later date once you've recovered.