Objective To compare the effect of conservative and operative treatment for cervical spinal cord injury without fracture and dislocation (CSCIWFD)and to detect mechanism of injury as well as its relationship to outcome.Methods A retrospective review was conducted on 688 patients with CSCIWFD treated from August 1994 to March 2013.There were 155 patients managed conservatively (conservation group) and 533 surgically (operation group).Neurological function improvement was compared between two groups to detect the correlation of patents' age and treatment methods with outcome.Results The patients were followed up for mean 17.9 months (range,3-36 months).Neurological function was estimated using Japanese Orthopedic Association (JOA) score:(1) the recovery rate of patients aged over 40 years in operation group was better than that in conservation group (P ＜0.05) ; (2) the recovery rate in patients aged under 39 years was unsatisfactory in both groups,with insignificant difference between the two groups (P ＞ 0.05).Conclusions Different age of patients with CSCIWFD has different injury mechanism,injury severity and outcome.Surgery provides better results than conservative treatment for patients aged over 40 years,but both results are poor for patients aged under 39 vears.