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Utility of Plain Radiographs in Detecting Traumatic Injuries of the Cervical Spine in Children
Pediatric Emergency Care, 05/07/2012
Nigrovic LE et al. – The findings suggest that plain radiographs had a high sensitivity for cervical spine injury in the pediatric cohort.
Methods- The authors identified a retrospective cohort of children younger than 16years with blunt trauma–related bony or ligamentous cervical spine injury evaluated between 2000 and 2004 at 1 of 17 hospitals participating in the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network.
- They excluded children who had a single or undocumented number of radiographic views or one of the following injuries types: isolated spinal cord injury, spinal cord injury without radiographic abnormalities, or atlantoaxial rotary subluxation.
- Using consensus methods, study investigators reviewed the radiology reports and assigned a classification (definite, possible, or no cervical spine injury) as well as film adequacy.
- A pediatric neurosurgeon, blinded to the classification of the radiology reports, reviewed complete case histories and assigned final cervical spine injury type.
- The authors identified 206 children who met inclusion criteria, of which 127 had definite and 41 had possible cervical spine injury identified by plain radiograph.
- Of the 186 children with adequate cervical spine radiographs, 168 had definite or possible cervical spine injury identified by plain radiograph for a sensitivity of 90% (95% confidence interval, 85%–94%).
- Cervical spine radiographs did not identify the following cervical spine injuries: fracture (15 children) and ligamentous injury alone (3 children).
- Nine children with normal cervical spine radiographs presented with 1 or more of the following: endotracheal intubation (4 children), altered mental status (5 children), or focal neurologic findings (5 children).