Post-traumatic lateral instability of the cervical spine.

Instability following sagittal distraction and rotational injuries of the cervical spine has been widely reported. We here report a case of post-traumatic segmental instability in the coronal plane. Case report. A 66-year-old farmer presented with painful torticollis having fallen into a ditch the previous day. He experienced immediate neck pain, but did not lose consciousness. He had a left temporal contusion and a tenor view showed left lateral divergence at C6/7 with a 20#{176} tilt (Fig. 2); on left lateral flexion this reduced completely (Fig. 3). He was treated for three weeks in halter traction elsewhere before being referred to us. We performed a posterior fusion of C6/7 in the reduced position, with interspinous wiring and with autogenous cancelbous grafts harvested from the posterior iliac crest. Fusion