The Essence of Clinical Practice Guidelines for Ossification of Spinal Ligaments, 2019: 1. Epidemiology of OPLL
Tomohiko Hasegawa
Abstract
Many reports indicate that the incidence of cervical OPLL differs according to race, with a higher incidence among Japanese and East Asian people than in Western people.Cervical OPLL is more common among men, whereas thoracic OPLL is common among women.Cervical OPLL often develops in middle age (approximately 50 years of age).The presence of cervical OPLL indicates a high rate of concurrent ossification in other spinal ligaments.Patients that present with serious ossification such as that extending in the entire spine are often women. Commentary Incidence in Japanese and differences according to raceIn a study using plain X-rays in Japanese, the incidence of cervical OPLL was approximately 3% (1.9-4.3%) [1][][3][4] .In a study using CT, the incidence of cervical OPLL was 6.3% 5) .In East Asian studies of the incidence of cervical OPLL, i.e., 2.8-3.0% in Taiwanese 6,7) , 0.95-3.6% in Korean 7,8) , and 1.1-1.7% in Chinese, were approximately equal to that in Japanese [9][10][11] . O the other hand, in an American study using CT, the prevalence of OPLL according to race was 1.3% among Caucasians, 4.8% among Asians, 1.9% among His-