Epidemiology of non-disaster spinal injuries at a spine unit

To describe the demography, types of injuries and their management in all non-disaster spinal injury patients admitted to the Spine Unit of a tertiary care hospital in Pakistan from 2001-2008.

Case series.

Spine Unit, Orthopaedic Department, Combined Military Hospital, Rawalpindi, from April 2001 to December 2008.

Data of all new non-disaster spinal injury patient admissions, kept in a custom-built database at Spine Unit, was analyzed. Demography, type of injuries and their management was described in percentages.

Five hundred and twenty one non-disaster patients were selected out of a total 671 new admissions with spinal injuries. Mean age was 39.1 years and 77% were males. Mechanisms of injury included; fall in 62% and road traffic accidents in 32%. Fracture dislocations and burst fractures were equally distributed (36% each). Most of the injuries (43.6%) were at T11-L1 level. Forty three percent patients had complete spinal cord injury (SCI), 33% had incomplete SCI and 24% did not have any SCI. Eight patients had concomitant spinal injury at a different level. Twelve percent patients had associated other major injuries. Seventy percent patients were treated surgically. Average follow-up was for 4 years.

Non-disaster spinal injury was frequent in young males usually due to fall or road traffic accident. It involved fracture dislocation or burst fracture at T11-L1, level in most cases requiring surgical treatment.