surgery options

I have been diagnosed with a herniated disc in the neck at the C6-C7 level.  I have been doing conservative treatments for 4 weeks and have seen some gradual improvement.  I still have neck and arm pain as well as numbness and tingling in the left arm.  If I do end up needing surgery, what are the surgical options available?  Is complete cervical laminectomy and bone graft the only option?  Is it possible to just have the herniated portion of the disc removed?

Thank you very much for your response.

[CCF-Neuro-M.D.-JT]

You definitely have other options. The most common type of surgery is discectomy with vertebral fusion using metal hardware, bone grafts, and sometimes cages depending on the extent of bony and disc abnormality. What's come up in the last few years is endoscopic microsurgery for cervical spine dz where a smaller incision is made. ANother option done at a few hospitals is chemonucleolysis where they inject an enzyme called chympapain to chemically dissolve the herniated disc instead of surgery. This is usually done in the lumbar spine because there are a lot of important structures in the neck (arteries and nerves) that could possibly be affected. Talk to your local neurosurgeon or orthopedist for more details. Best of luck.