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Cobb Angle Changes in Thoracic and Lumbar Spine Fractures Following Road Traffic Injuries in Gwagwalada, Abuja


AA Kawu

Abstract

The annual incidence of spinal column fracture is 350 per million populations. with Motor vehicular accident being the major single cause of spine injuries. The victims are predominantly young and male. The aim of this study to evaluate the clinical outcome of conservative treatment of closed thoracic and lumbar spine fractures following RTI at UATH GwagwaladaAbuja by measuring the progression in kyphotic deformity.
In this retrospective study, the age, gender, mechanism of the injury, time of presentation, symptoms, type of fracture, serial Cobb angle of the plain
radiology between 1st Jan 2008 and 31 December 2008 were were obtained studied from the case notes. - Sixteen patients with closed thoracic and lumbar fractures were seen during the review period. The male: female ratio was 3:1 with a mean age of 33.7± 11.4 years (males= 32.4 ± 7.9 years; females= 37.3 ± 8.4 years). The peak incidence was in the month of July (18.8%). Ten (62.5%) patients presented within a week of the injury. The predominant symptom was back pain (100%). Commercial bus (56.3%) was the commonest mode of transportation causing RTI with spinal fractures. The first lumbar vertebral (L1) (25.0%) was the most frequently fracture spine and the commonest fracture pattern was compression fracture (56.3%). At the index evaluation, the mean Cobb angle was 28.3º± 7.2º with an average progression of 9.8º± 4.2º at twenty-four weeks of conservative treatment.
The thoracolumbar spine was the commonest fracture site and the commonest fracture pattern was compression fracture. The short term clinical outcome of conservative treatment was not satisfactory

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eISSN: 2667-0526
print ISSN: 1115-2613