Cervicocardial syndrome

  With the accelerated pace of work, the increase in work and the reduction in people’s activities, the incidence of cervical spondylosis has increased year by year in recent years. It is also not uncommon for middle-aged people to suffer from this disease. Cervical heart syndrome is mostly seen in middle-aged and elderly people, and the misdiagnosis rate is high, and it is mostly misdiagnosed as coronary angina pectoris.  Cervical spondylosis, also known as cervical spine syndrome, is a general term for cervical osteoarthritis, hyperplastic cervical spondylitis, cervical nerve root syndrome and cervical disc prolapse, and is a disorder based on degenerative pathological changes. The definition of cervical heart syndrome is a group of symptoms caused by the patient’s cardiac complaints and electrocardiographic changes in cervical spine pathology, manifested as palpitations, chest tightness, shortness of breath and pain in the precordial region [1].  III|, clinical symptoms 1, cervical heart syndrome is mostly seen in middle-aged and elderly patients.  2, The disease has precordial pain, chest tightness. The symptoms include breath-holding, palpitations, shortness of breath, and myocardial ST-T ischemic changes on the electrocardiogram, and arrhythmias such as premature ventricular beats or premature atrial beats, as well as elevated blood pressure.  3. The symptoms may be triggered or aggravated by compression of the cervical and/or thoracic paravertebral pressure zones or by neck and back activities, or may be aggravated or alleviated by conscious changes in head and neck posture [2].  The cervical nerve roots form the sympathetic and vagal plexus in the neck, and both of them send out the superior, middle, and inferior cardiac nerves via the superior, middle, and inferior cervical ganglia to form the cardiac plexus. When cervical spine osteophytes, intervertebral disc lesions, or soft tissue and ligament injuries occur, they will compress and stimulate the surrounding sympathetic and vagal nerves. When the sympathetic nerve is excited, the heart rate is accelerated, atrioventricular conduction is accelerated, palpitations, tachycardia, arrhythmia; if the vagus nerve is excited, atrioventricular conduction is inhibited, myocardial contractility decreases, but the smooth muscle of the coronary artery contracts, so myocardial ischemia is obvious, which can be manifested as bradycardia, precordial pain, chest tightness, shortness of breath, etc.  2, sometimes this kind of cervical spondylosis intervertebral foramen stenosis or hyperplastic bone flab compressing vertebral artery ischemia, which can make the cardiovascular regulation center in the medulla oblongata ischemic and dysfunctional, leading to abnormal diastolic function of coronary artery, abnormal heart conduction, arrhythmia, etc.  1, the onset of the disease is older, mostly over 50 years old, with symptoms such as precordial pain, chest tightness, breath-holding, palpitations, shortness of breath, and even arrhythmia; 2, accompanied by a variety of typical symptoms, physical symptoms and imaging changes of cervical and (or) thoracic spine pathology; 3, may be triggered or aggravated by compression of the cervical and (or) thoracic paravertebral pressure area or neck and back activities, or consciously changing the head and neck posture to reduce its 4.Treatment with medical treatment for coronary artery disease and anti-arrhythmic drugs is often ineffective or ineffective; 5.Effective treatment for cervical spondylosis and thoracic spine lesions can relieve or alleviate the pain and other symptoms and arrhythmias; 6.With clinical symptoms of coronary artery disease, ischemic ECG changes are not obvious, or mild ST-T changes and arrhythmias.  The main symptoms are chest tightness, chest pain, palpitations, often accompanied by headache, dizziness, neck and shoulder back pain, hypertension, limb sensory abnormalities or movement disorders are rare. Most patients have no abnormal cardiac signs on physical examination, while there is pressure pain in the neck, chest X-ray and cardiac ultrasound are basically normal, electrocardiogram has no special performance, if sympathetic nerve structures are involved then ST-T changes or arrhythmias can occur, cervical spine imaging examination reveals abnormal changes in the cervical spine, which meets the diagnostic criteria of cervical spondylosis, cardiac enzyme profile, troponin and other biochemical indicators are basically in the normal range; anti The effect of angina treatment is not obvious.  The causes of misdiagnosis are similar to the age of onset of coronary artery disease, which is mostly seen in middle-aged and elderly people. Some doctors neglect the collection of medical history and detailed and comprehensive physical examination, and rely too much on auxiliary examinations such as instruments, which leads to too narrow thinking. Asking medical history is not detailed, physical examination is not meticulous enough, ignoring the clinical symptoms of patients with neck-related neck discomfort, and blindly treating them without doing the necessary neck X-ray and CT examination.  The root cause of “cervical heart syndrome” is cervical spondylosis, so the main treatment is cervical spondylosis and improvement of vertebrobasilar artery blood supply. Such as intravenous application of blood-stasis activating drugs, cervical traction, massage, physical therapy, in addition to pay attention to the correct posture of the cervical spine, avoiding cold neck during sleep, the usual appropriate neck activities and other measures can reduce the onset of cervical spondylosis. For some patients who are difficult to identify within a short period of time, they should be actively treated according to coronary heart disease first, so as not to delay the patient’s treatment and cause doctor-patient disputes or medical accidents.