Haemodynamic changes in patients with whiplash injury measured by transcranial Doppler sonography (TCD)

The daily increasing number of cervical whiplash injuries presents ever-greater requirement for vertebrobasilar diagnostics. A cervical spine injury, which is quite frequent injury, may occur during a fall, or industrial, traffic, sport or war injury. Transcranial Doppler (TCD) sonography with Transcan 3-D EME device and 2 MHz probe was used for the assessment of vertebrobasilar circulation in patients with a whiplash injury of the cervical spine, that occurred mostly in car accident. This study includes 47 patients with clinically verified cervical spine trauma with x-ray evidence of no bone lesion. The patients were examined by TCD within a month, and then six months following the accident. The obtained values were compared to normal blood flow velocities and correlated with the severity of clinical picture. During the first month after the injury, statistically significant disturbances in the vertebrobasilar circulation were recorded, such as the increase in mean blood flow velocities in AVL (68%), AVR (62%) and BA (51%) (mostly as spasam). Six months later, normal findings were obtained in about 50% of the vessels, whereas in rest of the patients vasospasam persisted in one, two or all examined blood vessels. TCD of the vertebrobasilar circulation was found to be a very useful method in the diagnostics and follow-up of patients with a whiplash injury.