Do cervical spine X-rays for trauma have clinically significant incidental findings?

About 800,000 cervical X-rays for trauma are taken every year in the USA. Those X-rays are reviewed by orthopedic specialists in the emergency room (ER) for traumatic findings. The quantity of incidental atraumatic findings in this very prevalent examination is unknown. We sought to determine the incidence of those findings.

We retrospectively reviewed 521 consecutive cervical X-rays of patients with a whiplash injury that visited our ER from February to July 2010. X-rays that were technically insufficient were excluded. This left 356 X-rays that met the inclusion criteria, which were analyzed for incidental findings. The examinations were reviewed by five staff radiologists for incidental findings. The findings were reviewed and classified.

We identified incidental X-ray findings in 22 of the 356 patients (6.2 %) who underwent X-ray of the cervical spine during their visit to the ER. Stenosis with disk narrowing was the most common finding (2.8 %), followed by congenital anomaly of the cervical spine (2.2 %). Other findings were enlarged sella turcica (0.6 %), carotid atherosclerosis (0.3 %), and calcification of the stylomastoid ligament (0.3 %). Older age was found to be a risk factor for an incidental finding (p < 0.0001).

Incidental findings in the cervical spine were associated with older age. Awareness of the prevalence of incidental findings is important in order to ensure that they are detected and managed appropriately.