-
- K Schleehauf, S E Ross, I D Civil, and C W Schwab.
- Department of Surgery, UMDNJ/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Camden.
- Ann Emerg Med. 1989 Aug 1;18(8):815-7.
AbstractUnstable injury of the cervical spine must be considered in all victims of blunt trauma. To evaluate the role of limited, directed computed tomography (CT) in the initial evaluation of the cervical spine, a one-year study involving 104 high-risk patients was undertaken. Sensitivity was 0.78 overall, but in the group of patients scanned after inadequate plain radiographs, CT had a sensitivity of 1.0 for unstable cervical injury. All false-negative studies involved atlantoaxial rotary subluxation. We conclude that limited, directed CT of the cervical spine is appropriate in the initial evaluation of patients at risk, particularly if plain radiographs are inadequate, but is of limited value in the evaluation of ligamentous injury of the upper cervical spine.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*,_underline_or**bold**. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>and subscript<sub>text</sub>. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3., hyphens-or asterisks*. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com) - Images can be included with:
 - For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote..