Abstract
Objective
To determine the incidence, distribution and associated organ damage in patients that sustained multilevel spinal injuries presenting to a level 1 trauma unit. Is the standard trauma series adequate?
Methodology
A retrospective, chart review of all spinal injury patients that were admitted to the spinal unit from March 2007 to May 2011 was performed. Patients with multilevel spinal injuries were isolated from paediatric, single level, and gunshot injuries. All Trauma unit patients undergo a full body C.T scan with angiography. Using the radiologist's reports the incidence, mechanism of injury, distribution patterns and associated organ damage sustained by this subset of patients was tabulated and reported on.
Results
Of the 825 patients that were admitted to the unit, 141 patients had sustained some form of spinal injury. 13 paediatric and 21 gunshot wound spinal patients were excluded. 107 adult blunt force spinal injuries were identified of which 39 fulfilled the multilevel spinal injury criteria.
Conclusion
The Incidence of multilevel spinal trauma is higher than previously reported. Distribution patterns found on this C.T scan based study differ from the older x-ray based studies. Distinct patterns of associated organ damage exist with specific spinal injury levels. The dorso- lumbar spine is the most common secondary level involved and it should be included in the trauma series X-ray evaluation of high risk polytrauma patients.
NO DISCLOSURES
