Evaluation of the SLICS use in the treatment of subaxial cervical spine injuries Avaliação do SLICS no tratamento das lesões da coluna cervical sub-axial

Cervical spine trauma can potentially result in serious neurological injury such as tetraplegia or severe disability. Sub-axial cervical spine trauma (SCST), involving the spine levels of C3 to C7, accounts for the majority of cervical spine injuries, comprising about 65% of fractures and 75% of all dislocations that affects the spine1. In an attempt to improve clinical results and compare treatment modalities, numerous classification systems that describe these injuries, try to predict stability, and also help with the choice of the treatment to be performed2,3,4. However, no one of them is universally accepted. One potential reason for the lack of a universal classification is that the treatment of SCST is based on a number of variables that include fracture patterns, suspected mechanism of injury, spinal alignment, neurologic injury, and expected long-term stability, which difficults reliability and reproducibility. Considering this, the Spine Trauma Study group proposed the Sub-axial Cervical Spine Injury Classification System (SLICS). This system is based on the evaluation of three major injury characteristics as follows: (1) injury morphology, determined by the pattern of spinal column disruption on available imaging studies, (2) integrity of the discoligamentous soft tissue complex (DLC) represented by both anterior and posterior ligamentous structures as well as the intervertebral disc, and (3) patient’s neurologic status. The system proposes a severity score grading, from the least to the most severe injury pattern1. The final score can help in the choice of conservative versus surgical treatment. The presence of morphological