Incidence rate and epidemiology of cervical spinal injuries and management in tertiary care hospital of Delhi: A institutional based retrospective study

Abstract

Introduction: Cervical spine injuries were the most common problem nowadays that many people experiencing due to high-intensity trauma. In contrast, substantial heterogeneity and lack of data exist among clinical spine trauma epidemiological studies limiting the ability to compare and pool data. The most common mechanism of injury is usually motor vehicle accidents. However, its patient-centered characterisation and quantification are lacking. Materials and Methods: Incidence and characteristics of cervical spine injury were identified in the tertiary care hospital of Delhi. Fifty-six cervical spine injuries admitted patients among all 228 spinal trauma patients who presented in the orthopaedic trauma emergency registry were recruited in this study. Results: There were 56 subjects identified (8.53%) with cervical spine injury admitted per further evaluation. Among these, 85.7% were male. Mainly age group involve is 20–40 year (median age – 24 year), mostly injured by road traffic accident (RTA) (35.7%). The cervical injury commonly has upper, and subaxial vertebrae fractures and anterolisthesis are much common than retrolisthesis. The hospital stay of listhesis patient is usually more than disc bulge patients. Halovent application is more common in the upper cervical (c 1 –c 2 ), like anterior cervical plating with dissectomy is common in disc bulge cervical patients. Conclusion: Cervical spinal injury is associated with RTA in the young age group. A head injury like trauma should take into consideration in every cervical patient. Early management with better operative techniques can decrease hospital stay and increase the recovery rate of patients.