The authors undertook a retrospective study involving 47 records of patients hospitalised for cervical myelopathy as the main clinical feature (n = 17) or symptomatic narrow lumbar canal (n = 30). Nine of these patients had clinical signs of both cervical myelopathy and of narrow lumbar canal, 10 of the 17 patients with a cervical myelopathy had lumbar stenosis as shown by midline sagittal tomography and/or CT scan, 9 of the 30 patients hospitalised for symptomatic narrow lumbar canal had cervical stenosis as shown by midline sagittal tomography, 13 of these 19 patients with both cervical and lumbar stenosis had enveloping vertebral hyperostosis.