The Impact of Cervical Spinal Disease on Pharyngeal Swallowing Function

Purpose: Spinal pathology is very common with advancing age and can cause dysphagia; however, it is unclear how frequently these pathologies affect swal-lowing function. This study evaluates how cervical spinal pathology may impact swallowing function in dysphagic individuals observed during videofluoroscopic swallowing studies (VFSSs).Method: A retrospective case-control study was performed on 100 individuals with dysphagia as well as age-/gender-matched healthy controls (HCs) with avail-able VFSS. Spinal anatomy of patients was classified into two predetermined cate-gories, and a consensus decision of whether spinal pathology influenced swallow-ing physiology was made. Validated swallow metrics, including Modified Barium Swallow Impairment Profile (MBSImP) component scores, Penetration-Aspiration Scale (PAS) maximum scores, and 10-item Eating Assessment Tool (EAT-10) scores, were compared between the spine-associated dysphagia (SAD), non-SAD (NSAD), and HC groups using Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance.Results: Most patients with dysphagia had spinal pathology. Spinal pathology was judged to be the primary etiology of dysphagia in 16.9% of patients with abnormal spine pathology. Median EAT-10 scores were statistically different among the three groups, with the NSAD group scoring the highest and the HC group scoring the lowest. Similarly, median PAS scores were significantly differ-ent between dysphagic groups and HCs. Median MBSImP Oral Total scores were significantly different only between the NSAD group and HCs, whereas Pharyngeal Total score was not significantly different among the groups.Conclusions: Spinal pathology is commonly observed during VFSS and can contribute to dysphagia, resulting in worse swallowing-related outcomes when compared with HCs. Patients judged to have SAD tended to have better out-comes than patients with dysphagia from other etiologies, perhaps due to the progressive nature of spinal disease that allows for compensatory swallowing physiology over time.

Automated summary

This study investigates the impact of cervical spinal pathology on swallowing function in dysphagic individuals. The results show that most patients with dysphagia have spinal pathology, and in some cases, spinal pathology is the primary cause of dysphagia. Compared with healthy controls, patients with spinal pathology have lower scores on swallow metrics.