Pathology of hyperextension injuries of the cervical spine

Autopsies were performed between 1957 and 1987 on 31 patients with traumatic spinal cord injuries. Among these there were nine patients with hypertension injuries to the cervical spine composed of four patients with hyperextension injuries to the arthritic spine, three patients with hyperextension injuries to the rigid cervical spine, one patient with a self reduced posterior subluxation, and one patient with a hyperextension fracture-dislocation. The sex, age, clinical course, bone injuries revealed by roentgenograms, level and grade of neurological deficits, survival time, and findings of postmortem studies of those nine patients with hypertension injuries are presented in Table I. The methods employed in this study were the same as those that were described in my report on the pathology of cervical intervertebral disc injuries. This paper illustrates the pathological features of six of these cases and discusses the mechanism of the spinal cord lesions in various types of injuries.