Albert Dereymaeker and Joseph Cyriel Mulier’s description of anterior cervical discectomy with fusion in 1955

Anterior cervical discectomy with fusion (ACDF) is a very well-known and often-performed procedure in the practice of spine surgeons. The earliest descriptions of the technique have always been attributed to Cloward, Smith, and Robinson. However, in the French literature, this procedure was also described by others during the exact same time period (in the 1950s).At a meeting in Paris in 1955, Belgians Albert Dereymaeker and Joseph Cyriel Mulier, a neurosurgeon and an orthopedic surgeon, respectively, described the technique that involved an anterior cervical discectomy and the placement of an iliac crest graft in the intervertebral disc space. In 1956, a summary of their oral presentation was published, and a subsequent paper—an illustrated description of the technique and the details of a larger case series with a 3.5-year follow-up period—followed in 1958.The list of authors who first described ACDF should be completed by adding Dereymaeker’s and Mulier’s names. They made an important contribution to the practice of spinal surgery that was not generally known because they published in French.