Outcome of spinal cord injuries managed in a centre without modern imaging facilities.
نویسندگان
چکیده
BACKGROUND The paucity of published reports from West Africa on the outcome of spinal cord injuries (SCI) reflects the limitations of the developing health care delivery system in this part of the world. OBJECTIVE To review the outcome of the spinal cord injuries managed in our centre and relate same to those of published reports. METHODS We conducted a prospective study by utilizing a structured proforma on all SCI cases admitted to and managed in our service from April 21, 2006 to April 20, 2008. The collated data were then analyzed and compared to the literature. RESULTS Spinal injury (neural and non-neural) was diagnosed in 62 (7.5%) of 826 total consultations in the two-year period under study. Thirty five (56.5%) of them were less than 40 years with fewer cases at the extremes of age, and most 47 (76%) were males. Forty nine (79%) had neural injuries of which the majority (94%) involved the spinal cord. Treatment was nonoperative in all cases, and all those with complete cord injury remained without neurological recovery, whereas 91% of cases of incomplete injuries made varying degrees of recovery. Mortality from the cord injuries was 13 (28.3%), and all were in the cervical region. Twenty (32.3%) were followed up in the outpatient clinic for a mean period of 13.7 weeks (range 1.4 to 63.4 weeks) following discharge. CONCLUSION Our findings support the reports that cases of incomplete cord injury make neurological recovery, while those of complete injury do not. Our mortality rate of 28.3% compares closely with the mortality rates from other local series.
منابع مشابه
Epidemiology of traumatic spinal cord injury: The substantial role of imaging methods
Background and aims: One of the most common injuries around the world is the traumatic injury of the spine and spinal cord with unknown worldwide situation of traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) affecting on the effectiveness of preventive policy programs. In addition, because of possibility of making paralysis, the potential injury to the spine could be one of the most importa...
متن کاملAdult Spinal Cord Injury without Radiographic Abnormalities (SCIWORA): Clinical and Radiological Correlations
BACKGROUND This study is aimed to determine the clinical and radiological corellations of adult patients with Spinal Cord Injury Without Radiographic Abnormalities (SCIWORA). METHODS The study population consisted of all adult patients with suspected cervical spine injury. SCIWORA was defined as the presence of either no injury or a neural injury on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in the abs...
متن کاملEffect of Physiological Noise on Thoraco-lumbar Spinal Cord FMRI in 3T Magnetic Field
Introduction: Functional MRI methods have been used to study sensorimotor processing in the Spinal cord. However, these techniques confront unwanted contributions to the measured signal from the physiological fluctuations. For the spinal cord imaging, most of the challenges are consequences of cardiac and respiratory movement artifacts that are considered as significant sources of noise, especi...
متن کاملPOST-TRAUMATIC CHRONIC SPINAL CORD INJURY: ASSESSMENT WITH MRI
The initial experience concerning the use of magnetic resonance imaging in 94 patients who had sustained chronic cord injury showed its specific advantages over traditional imaging modalities. A variety of 84 cord abnormalities were identified including myelomalacia in 47%, cord cysts in 37%, focal atrophy in 11 % and cord transection in 5%. Canal stenosis was seen in twenty-five patients, ...
متن کاملEvaluation of Sensory Pathways in Spinal Cord by Comparison of fMRI Methodologies
Introduction: Today, clinicians and neuroscientists need to have a comprehensive survey of neurological pathologies and injuries. For the First-time, SEEP contrast and Spin-Echo pulse sequences was used for functional imaging of the Lumbar spinal cord. This method used by several research groups for Spinal cord mapping, but other researchers tried to improve BOLD fMRI to Spina...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید
ثبت ناماگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید
ورودعنوان ژورنال:
- West African journal of medicine
دوره 28 6 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2009