Diagnosis, Timing and Treatment of Cervical Spine Injuries in Polytraumatized Patients

Treatment of polytrauma patients has been discussed extensively during the past decades. Management in the prehospital phase, on admission, and in the early postoperative/ICU-period has to refer to injury severity, priority of injuries, and likelihood of development of multi organ failure. Cervical spine injuries are reported in 4-34% of polytrauma cases. Securing the cervical spine by a hard collar is one of the basic procedures in the prehospital phase. Different strategies of assessing the cervical spine are still discussed controversially. Since plain radiographs, CT-scan, MRI, and flexion/extension fluoroscopy still play a role in early diagnosis of cervical spine injury, we present an analysis of cervical spine injuries in our multiple trauma patients to elucidate our algorithm. We reviewed our data between January 2003 and December 2006 concerning epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment of cervical spine injury in polytrauma patients. Multislice-CT (MSCT) or Multidetector-CT was used as standard diagnostic procedures in the polytraumatized patient. In 97% of patients, CT-scanning showed to be a reliable tool in detecting injuries of the cervical spine. Only in two patients (3%), additional MRI lead to a change in treatment strategy. Of 66 polytraumatized patients with significant cervical spine injury, 25 (37.9%) received surgical treatment within 24 h. Sixteen patients (24.2%) were treated surgically after stabilization on ICU. There was a better outcome concerning length of hospitalization in the "day-onesurgery" group. We consider MSCT as standard approach towards diagnosis of cervical spine injury in polytrauma patients. MRI and flexion/extension fluoroscopy can give additional information in selected cases.