Cervical spine injury in pediatric trauma occurs rarely; however, there is significant potential for considerable morbidity when it does occur. Screening for cervical spine injuries has been shown to be most sensitive in adult trauma centers when combined with reliable physical examination findings. Because pediatric trauma patients suffer from a different range of injuries than adults, and oft...

PURPOSE To review the impact of concomitant cervical spine injury on the management of facial fractures in a tertiary care institution via a retrospective chart review. PATIENTS AND METHODS Within the past 10 years, 1,750 consecutive patients presented to our institution with facial fractures. Thirty-two had concomitant cervical spine injury. Five were transferred or died before treatment. Th...

BACKGROUND Severe cervical spine injury in rugby union (rugby) exerts a major impact on the individual who sustains the injury and on the broader society. Since the late 1970s, authors of rugby case report studies have postulated that the underlying mechanism of cervical spine injury is hyperflexion of the neck. However, this is in conflict with findings from more recent experimental studies. T...

RECOMMENDATIONS Standards: A three view cervical spine series (AP, lateral, and odontoid views) is recommended for radiographic evaluation of the cervical spine in patients who are symptomatic following traumatic injury. This should be supplemented with computed tomography to further define areas that are suspicious or not well visualized on the plain cervical x-rays. Guidelines: There is insuf...

INTRODUCTION Despite modern imaging methods, tuberculous abscess in the subdural space of the spine can lead to misdiagnosis and to neurogical complications development, even more up to paraplegia. We presented an extremely rare case of subdural tuberculous abscess of the lumbar (L) spine and paraparesis in imunocompetent a 49-year-old patient. CASE REPORT A patient with chronic L syndrome an...

We report a rare case of cervical spinal epidural abscess due to Klebsiella pneumoniae. While the most likely pathogen is Staphylococcus aureus, 2.5% of CNS infections have been attributed to Klebsiella pneumoniae. The source of infection in this case is suspected to be from cervical vertebra osteomyelitis/discitis that expanded to epidural space. Prompt drainage of the abscess by decompression...

The cervical spine allows humans to perform complex motions including lateral bending, twisting, and flexion/extension. The anatomical structures of the cervical spine, such as the cervical discs, facet joints, and ligaments, are constantly under stress due to everyday activities. Sustained stress over time causes injury and degeneration in the structures of the cervical spine and the developme...

Spinal epidural abscesses (SEA) are considerably rare and tend to present over two five vertebral segments. Occasionally, there will be or more noncontiguous areas of pyogenic collections [1]. Minimal cases have been reported span the entire column; a meta-analysis estimates that 1% all SEA holospinal [2]. The triad presenting symptoms includes fever, back pain (often midline), neurologic defec...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The National Emergency X-Radiography Utilization Study Low-Risk Criteria were established to identify patients with a low probability of cervical spine injury in whom imaging of the cervical spine was unnecessary. The purpose of this study was to ascertain the number of unnecessary cervical spine CT studies on the basis of proper application of established clinical guidel...

This article reviews cervical laminoplasty. The origin of cervical laminoplasty dates back to cervical laminectomy performed in Japan ~50 years ago. To overcome poor surgical outcomes of cervical laminectomy, many Japanese orthopedic spine surgeons devoted their lives to developing better posterior decompression procedures for the cervical spine. Thanks to the development of a high-speed surgic...