BACKGROUND: Cervical spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating condition with very few treatment options. It remains unclear if early surgery correlated with conversion of American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale (AIS) grade A injuries to higher grades. OBJECTIVE: To determine the optimal time to surgery after cervical SCI through retrospective analysis. METHODS: We collected data from 48 patients with cervical SCI. Based on the time from Emergency Department (ED) presentation to surgical decompression, we grouped patients into ultra-early (decompression within 12 h of presentation), early (within 12-24 h), and late groups (>24 h). We compared the improvement in AIS grade from admission to discharge, controlling for confounding factors such as AIS grade on admission, injury severity, and age. The mean time from injury to ED for this group of patients was 17 min. RESULTS: Patients who received surgery within 12 h after presentation had a relative improvement in AIS grade from admission to discharge: the ultra-early group improved on average 1.3. AIS grades compared to 0.5 in the early group (P = .02). In addition, 88.8% of patients with an AIS grade A converted to a higher grade (AIS B or better) in the ultra-early group, compared to 38.4% in the early and late groups (P = .054). CONCLUSION: These data suggest that surgical decompression after SCI that takes place within 12 h may lead to a relative improved neurological recovery compared to surgery that takes place after 12 h.
BACKGROUND: Cervical spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating condition with very few treatment options. It remains unclear if early surgery correlated with conversion of American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale (AIS) grade A injuries to higher grades. OBJECTIVE: To determine the optimal time to surgery after cervical SCI through retrospective analysis. METHODS: We collected data from 48 patients with cervical SCI. Based on the time from Emergency Department (ED) presentation to surgical decompression, we grouped patients into ultra-early (decompression within 12 h of presentation), early (within 12-24 h), and late groups (>24 h). We compared the improvement in AIS grade from admission to discharge, controlling for confounding factors such as AIS grade on admission, injury severity, and age. The mean time from injury to ED for this group of patients was 17 min. RESULTS:Patients who received surgery within 12 h after presentation had a relative improvement in AIS grade from admission to discharge: the ultra-early group improved on average 1.3. AIS grades compared to 0.5 in the early group (P = .02). In addition, 88.8% of patients with an AIS grade A converted to a higher grade (AIS B or better) in the ultra-early group, compared to 38.4% in the early and late groups (P = .054). CONCLUSION: These data suggest that surgical decompression after SCI that takes place within 12 h may lead to a relative improved neurological recovery compared to surgery that takes place after 12 h.
Authors: Alexander B Dru; Brett Reichwage; Dan Neal; Sasha Vaziri; Dennis Timothy Lockney; W Christopher Fox; Brian L Hoh; Daniel J Hoh Journal: Spinal Cord Date: 2019-04-16 Impact factor: 2.772
Authors: Jetan H Badhiwala; Jefferson R Wilson; James S Harrop; Alexander R Vaccaro; Bizhan Aarabi; Fred H Geisler; Michael G Fehlings Journal: JAMA Surg Date: 2022-09-28 Impact factor: 16.681
Authors: Daniel Zeitouni; Michael Catalino; Brice Kessler; Virginia Pate; Til Stürmer; Carolyn Quinsey; Deb A Bhowmick Journal: World Neurosurg Date: 2020-06-12 Impact factor: 2.104
Authors: Jefferson R Wilson; Christopher D Witiw; Jetan Badhiwala; Brian K Kwon; Michael G Fehlings; James S Harrop Journal: Global Spine J Date: 2020-01-06
Authors: Hardeep Ryait; Edgar Bermudez-Contreras; Matthew Harvey; Jamshid Faraji; Behroo Mirza Agha; Andrea Gomez-Palacio Schjetnan; Aaron Gruber; Jon Doan; Majid Mohajerani; Gerlinde A S Metz; Ian Q Whishaw; Artur Luczak Journal: PLoS Biol Date: 2019-11-21 Impact factor: 8.029