Spinal cord injury resulting from gunshot wounds: a comparative study with non-gunshot causes

Retrospective, comparative 7-year study.

To identify the clinical characteristics of patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) resulting from gunshot wound (GSW).

Turkish Armed Forces Rehabilitation Center, Ankara, Turkey.

The study included 1043 consecutive patients with SCI who were divided into two groups according to etiology: patients with gunshot-induced spinal cord injury (GSWSCI) constituted the study group, and randomly selected patients with non-gunshot-induced spinal cord injury (NGSWSCI) who were matched for gender and for week of admission constituted the control group. The demographic and clinical characteristics of the patients were recorded, compared and analyzed.

The study group included 102 patients (mean age: 26.93±9.11 years). The vast majority of the patients were aged 16-30 years (68.6%) and 90.2% were male. The majority of the lesions were at the thoracic level (58.8%) and a complete injury (60.8%). Surgical stabilization of the spine was performed in 50 patients (49%). The most prevalent associated injury was intra-abdominal injury followed by chest injury. Compared with the NGSWSCI group, the GSWSCI patients were more likely to have a complete lesion (60.8% vs 45.1%, P=0.025), had a lower rate of surgical stabilization (49 vs 88.2%, P=0.0001) and had a higher rate of associated injuries (54.9% vs 25.5%, P=0.0001). Compared with the civilian GSWSCI group, the military GSWSCI patients had a higher rate of surgical stabilization and associated injuries (60% vs 40%, P=0.049, 68.9% vs 43.9%, P=0.012, respectively).

The results revealed that GSWSCI and military GSWSCI patients may have different demographic and clinical features compared with NGSWSCI and civilian GSWSCI patients, respectively.