Epidemiological evaluation of victims of spinal cord injury.

OBJECTIVE to evaluate patients suffering from spinal cord injury METHODS A retrospective, cross-sectional study was conducted with 87 patients admitted to the university hospital of UFMA between January 2008 and June 2009. We assessed sex, age, compromised segment of the spine and cause of injury, subjecting these data to statistical analysis (chi-square test). RESULTS there was a significant prevalence of males (p <0.001), with 81.6% (71) cases, and age between 21 and 30 years of age (p <0.001), with 39.1% (34) of cases. The average age was 33.96 ± 13.56 years. The proportion of falls from height was significantly greater than the number of traffic (p <0.001) and motorcycle (p <0.001) accidents. The most compromised segment of the spine (p <0.001) was the thoracic (33), with 37.9% of cases. Traffic accidents appear in greater proportion among men (p = 0.014). The cervical spine was the most affected in males (p = 0.043). The thoracolumbar fractures were caused, to a greater extent, by falls from height (p = 0.003), whereas involvement of the thoracic spine was significantly higher (p = 0.016) in traffic accidents. CONCLUSION The group at higher risk of injury to the spinal cord is the young adult male. Although there is a difference between the sexes when correlated traffic accidents, falling from height is the main cause in both sexes.