Patient and injury characteristics in all spinal injury patients and subgroups
| Characteristic | Subgroup; no. of patients* | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All spinal injuries (n = 275) | Myelopathy (n = 34) | Permanent neurological injuries (n = 15) | Mortality (n = 9) | SCIWORA (n = 2) | |
| Age, mean ± SD, yr | 12 ± 4.5 | 12.2 ± 4.1 | 11.1 ± 5.0 | 9.3 ± 5.3 | 13.5 ± 2.1 |
| Sex | |||||
| Male | 158 | 21 | 10 | 7 | 2 |
| Female | 117 | 13 | 5 | 2 | 0 |
| Mechanism of injury | |||||
| Motor vehicle–related | 146 | 16 | 10 | 9 | 1 |
| Sports-related | 78 | 15 | 4 | 0 | 1 |
| Falls | 35 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Other | 10 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Child abuse | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Injury level | |||||
| O–C2 | 46 | 5 | 1 | 6 | 0 |
| C3–C7 | 42 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| T1–T10 | 39 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| T11–L1 | 44 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| L2–S | 72 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| NCSI | 32 | 8 | 5 | 2 | 0 |
| SCIWORA | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Associated injury | |||||
| None | 124 | 12 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| Head injury | 81 | 11 | 5 | 8 | 1 |
| Orthopedic injury | 73 | 10 | 5 | 2 | 1 |
| Visceral injury | 35 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 0 |
| Chest injury | 28 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| Genitourinary injury | 14 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Maxillofacial injury | 23 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Treatment | |||||
| Conservative | 150 | 9 | 6 | 7 | 0 |
| Collar or brace | 67 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Halo Vest | 19 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Surgery | 39 | 14 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| Death | 9 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 |
C = cervical; O = occipital; L = lumbar; NCSI = noncontiguous spinal injuries; S = sacral; SCIWORA = spinal cord injuries without radiological abnormalities; SD = standard deviation; T = thoracic.
↵* Unless indicated otherwise.