Interactive Transcript
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I must admit that although we talk about hyperflexion
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and hyperextension injuries to the cervical spine,
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it's very rare that we actually get
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that history from the clinicians.
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What we usually just get is motor vehicle collision
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or found down, or status post fall.
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So, although there are these specific patterns of injury that
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may be associated with the different
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types of mechanisms of injury,
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we really don't get to have that classification
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provided to us by the clinical service.
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Here is a list of the hyperextension injuries.
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As you can see,
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you may have a fracture of the spinous
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process with a hyperextension injury.
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You may have the hyperextension teardrop, a little triangular
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fragment here with widening of the intervertebral space.
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You may have some offset of the facet
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joints even with a hyperextension
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injury to the cervical spine.
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One of the things that you should include in your
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description of the injury is whether or not
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the patient has underlying disease.
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The reason for this is because sometimes the surgical
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intervention or the necessity for surgical intervention will
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be predicated upon whether or not the patient has a disease
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process that may lead to instability of the spine.
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Let me give an example.
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Rheumatoid arthritis patient, for example,
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will have laxity of the ligaments,
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often at the C1-C2 level with atlantoaxial subluxation.
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This is a patient who has diffuse
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idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis, connecting
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all these different vertebral bodies.
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And he knows that there is a fracture here with an offset and
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an absence of the continuation of that bony margin there
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at the, I believe this is C6-C7 level. Ankylosing spondylosis,
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another example where you may have syndesmosis or
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syndesmophytes between the vertebral bodies and yet have
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an injury that will fracture through the ankylosed
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cervical spine, thoracic spine, or lumbar spine.
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On the MRI scan that accompanies this case,
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you see that there is narrowing of the AP diameter spinal canal
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at the level of the injury with a small epidural abscess,
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both posteriorly as well as anteriorly.
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This is the dural margin, this black line.
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This is the black line of the dural margin,
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and this is the black line of the dural margin.
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And on this case,
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the patient had an epidural hematoma, both anteriorly as well
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as extending posteriorly from this fracture through here.
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Notice also the anterior longitudinal
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ligament disruption and the fracture.
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So this is a first-column disease as
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well as second column disease.
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And then we would probably look at that ligamentum
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flavum and be concerned about the third column.
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But in any case,
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the MRI's value is not just in demonstrating
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the ligamentous injury,
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but also looking for cord injury as well as the presence
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or absence of epidural hematomas.
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