الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 91 |  |  |
| | | from | 91 | | |
Abstract
Cervical spine injuries are the most feared of all spinal injuries because of the potential for serious neurologic sequelae. They result in significant associated morbidity and mortality.
In the trauma setting, multidetector CT is used concurrently to assess other body regions, and the spine can easily be included as part of multisegment scan.
Multidetector CT also allows generation of high-quality multiplanar two- and three-dimensional images for improved interpretation.
Multidetector CT provides a fast and comprehensive display of spinal anatomy, and more important, it has shown a high sensitivity for fracture detection.
The aim of this work was directed to study the contribution of CT and CTA (if clinically indicated) imaging in cervical spine trauma.
This study was carried out on twenty-five patients, including twenty males and five females, who presented by recent cervical spine trauma.
All patients were subjected to full history taking, thorough clinical and neurological examination and multi-detector CT examination of cervical spine.
The non-enhanced CT images were acquired using multidetector machines in axial plane and were reconstructed in coronal and sagittal planes.
The cervical spine trauma was more common in male patients (80%) than in female patient, and the most common cause for trauma was road traffic accident ( 88%) while falling from height was less common .
Cervical spine trauma was most common in third decade followed by fourth decade .
Multidetector CT helped in detection of total thirty-eight cervical spine injuries in twenty-five patients in this study.
Neck pain and limitation of neck movement were presenting symptoms in 100% of patients . Moreover; neurological deficit was present in 16% of cases , and was mostly due to retropulsion of a bony fragment followed by subluxation of cervical spine.
Eight patients (32%) had multiple level affection , while seventeen patients (68%) had only single level affection.
The most common type of injury was cervical spine fracture and was found in 19 patients (76%) followed by fracture of cervical vertebra/ vertebrae accompanied by vertebral subluxation found in 5 patients (20%). While cervical vertebral subluxation without any fracture was found in one patient (4%).
The most common cervical spine injury was in axis vertebra (44%) and mostly odontoid process fracture, followed by the seventh cervical vertebra (24%).
Most of the patients with cervical spine trauma had unstable injuries (56%) according to the three-column theory.
In this study there were fourteen associated injuries other than cervical spines in eight patients; most commonly they were in the chest, including bony chest, lungs and pleura; followed by skull and facial bone fractures.
CT is unable to detect spinal cord injuries.
CT entitles high radiation dose, so it has limited use in pregnancy.