Brown, a seven-year veteran who led the team with 59 catches for 827 yards last year, will undergo surgery next week to repair a ruptured cervical disk.

Those were the effects of the surgery, which cleaned out bone spurs that had broken off and were protruding into the nerve roots near the sixth cervical disk in Pohl's neck.

Thirty-two of the divers also had at least one abnormal cervical disk, compared with nine in the nondiving group.

The book had its source in an accident that damaged one of Sims's cervical disks, leading to a diskectomy that forced him to lie immobile on his back for two weeks.

On August 2, it was reported that Duncan would miss the rest of the 2008 season after having surgery to address a herniated cervical disk in his neck.

He did not take a snap until the 13th game, when Johnson suffered a herniated cervical disk and Cunningham came off the bench in a loss to Green Bay.

He threw one pass the week after that and spent the rest of the season on injured reserve with a herniated cervical disk.

Gretzky, who had played in 223 consecutive games, had been treating the injury to a cervical disk with aspirin and heat for months.

Johnson & Johnson, Synthes, Stryker and numerous smaller device companies are also developing upper spine, or cervical, disks.

The companies are also racing to develop cervical disks for the neck and upper spine.