Thoracic Fracture-Dislocations Without Spinal Cord Injury - Two Cases Reports-

Abstract

Thoracic fracture-dislocations reportedly lead to an 80% incidence of complete paraplegia. Thus, thoracic fracture-dislocations without cord injury are uncommon. There are a few cases of thoracic fracture-dislocations in which the neural sparing status was associated with separation of the posterior spinal structures, such as the pedicles and laminae. The authors experienced two cases of thoracic fracture-dislocations without spinal cord injury: one was a 50-year-old man who fell from the fourth floor of a building and sustained a T6-7 fracturedislocation; and the other was a 43-year-old man who was involved in motorcycle accident and sustained a T12 fracture-dislocation. Segmental spinal instrumentation and fusion without open reduction was performed in each of the two cases and there has not been any abnormality detected on neurological examination at a minimum follow-up period of 2 years.