ABSTRACT
Objective:
Evaluate the neurological recovery with a follow-up of 06 (six) months in victims of thoracic and lumbar fractures who underwent spinal decompression in less than 24 hours, between 24 and 48 hours, and more than 48 hours after the trauma.
Methods:
Data were collected on patients seen at a large public hospital in Belo Horizonte, between 2014 and 2018, who were victims of SCI who presented with neurological deficits at initial care, and the neurological recovery presented.
Results:
41 SCI patients were evaluated, whose mean age was 34 years. There was a predominance of thoracic spine fractures (65.9% of the cases) and classified as AO Spine type C (75%). Regarding the time variable, about 68% of the patients were submitted to surgical treatment more than 48 hours after the trauma. It was observed that both the patients submitted to surgical decompression within less than 24 hours, and those operated on more than 48 hours after the trauma showed a slight neurological improvement at the 6-month follow-up. However, no statistical significance was found. It is worth noting that even when analyzing the 41 patients of the study, regardless of the surgical interval, it was impossible to observe a statistically significant neurological improvement at the 6-month follow-up.
Conclusion:
Our study could not demonstrate significant differences between those patients who operated early in less than 24 hours and those who operated after more than 48 hours. Level of Evidence III; Comparative retrospective study.
Keywords:
Spinal Cord Injuries; Spinal Cord Compression; Arthrodesis; Decompression; Fractures, Bone; Wounds and Injuries