sustain traumatic brain injuries due to blunt force trauma. Cervical spinal injury should be suspected in any trauma patient with loss of consciousness. All of the following patients should undergo a radiographic search for a cervical spinal injury: patients who present awake with neck pain or tenderness, patients with a neurologic deficit, patients who have sustained a traumatic brain injury, ...

STUDY OBJECTIVE We designed the Canadian C-Spine Rule for the clinical clearance of the cervical spine, without need for diagnostic imaging, in alert and stable trauma patients. Emergency physicians previously validated the Canadian C-Spine Rule in 8,283 patients. This study prospectively evaluates the performance characteristics, reliability, and clinical sensibility of the Canadian C-Spine Ru...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the hypothesis that alert nonintoxicated trauma patients with negative clinical examinations are at no risk of cervical spine injury and do not need any radiographic investigation. DESIGN Prospective study. SETTING A university-affiliated teaching county hospital. PATIENTS Five hundred and forty-nine consecutive alert, oriented, and clinically nonintoxicated blunt tr...

BACKGROUND Cervical spine clearance requires clinicians to assess the reliability of physical examination based on a patient's mental status and distracting injuries. Distracting injuries have never been clearly defined in military casualties. METHODS Retrospective review was conducted of patients entered into Department of Defense Trauma Registry January 2008 to August 2013, identifying blun...

Polytrauma is a syndrome with multiple injuries of defined severity. Patients with chest injuries have a higher possibility to have a spine trauma. In patient with vertebral fracture the prevalence of concomitant thoracic injuries is 2.9%. Thoracic trauma is a common cause of morbidity and mortality in polytraumatized patient and acute spinal cord injury is one of the most causes of disability ...

BACKGROUND Epidemiology of cervical spine fractures (CSfx) in trauma patients of general population is not yet exclusively known. OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to evaluate the epidemiology of CSfx in trauma patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS Data from trauma patients admitted in the emergency room (ER) of Shiraz Shahid Rajaei hospital during the 3.5 years period from September 22, 20...

Osteochondroma is a rare condition in the spine that may be indolent due to its slow growth. The authors present a case of 32-year-old man with subclinical osteochondroma in the cervical spine presenting as Brown-Sequard syndrome after trivial neck trauma. After resection of the tumor through hemilaminectomy, his symptoms were improved with mild residual sequelae.

The halo fixator may be used for the definitive treatment of cervical spine trauma, preoperative reduction in the patient with spinal deformity, and adjunctive postoperative stabilization following cervical spine surgery. Halo fixation decreases cervical motion by 30% to 96%. Absolute contraindications include cranial fracture, infection, and severe soft-tissue injury at the proposed pin sites....

Cervical spine immobilization is an essential component of the ATLS(®) system. Inadequate training in the management of trauma calls and failure of early recognition can have disastrous consequences. Pre-hospital personnel are routinely involved more in the assessment and stabilization of patients in comparison to other health care professionals.This case study and review highlights the importa...

In the setting of spinal trauma, the bone, ligaments, spinal cord, and vascular structures may be injured. Anatomically, the vertebral bony spine can be divided into structural columns. The cervical spine is traditionally divided into two columns— anterior and posterior. The anterior column consists of the load-bearing vertebral bodies, intervertebral disks, anterior longitudinal ligament, and ...