Correlation of clinical, radiological and sonographic data in patients with posttraumatic cervical spine deformities

Abstract

Seventy-one patients with posttraumatic subaxial cervical spine deformities were examined in order to reveal a relationship of the character of deformity with the functional state of blood flow in vertebral arteries and clinical signs. It was found out that typical for old and long-standing deformities was a syndrome, which included moderate pains in the cervical spine and changes in the reflex sphere. Sonographically, 70.5% of patients revealed pathological changes of haemodynamics in the form of a significant asymmetry of peak-systolic blood velocity (more than 30%) along vertebral arteries, while the syndrome of vertebrobasilar insufficiency developed in 39.2% of cases with distraction-flexion damages on stages 2–4 and in 15.3% of patients with compression-flexion damages on stages 3-5.