The role of emergency radiology in spinal trauma

Spinal trauma is very frequent injury with different severity and prognosis varying from asymptomatic condition to temporary neurological dysfunction, focal deficit or fatal event. The major causes of spinal trauma are high- and low-energy fall, traffic accident, sport and blunt impact. The radiologist has a role of great responsibility to establish the presence or absence of lesions, to define the characteristics, to assess the prognostic influence and therefore treatment. Imaging has an important role in the management of spinal trauma. The aim of this paper was to describe: incidence and type of vertebral fracture; imaging indication and guidelines for cervical trauma; imaging indication and guidelines for thoracolumbar trauma; multidetector CT indication for trauma spine; MRI indication and protocol for trauma spine.