Case study 72 - cervical degenerative disc disease treated by cervical disc replacement. Cervical disc disease can cause neck pain or pain in the nerves of the arm and shoulder. The standard surgery seeks to replace the disc with any number of devices, the end goal being to fuse the upper and lower vertebral body. Theoretically, creating a solid piece of bone where two bones once moved independently accelerates degeneration of the discs above and below the fusion, also known as adjacent level di