Clinical and Radiological Profile of Cervical Spine injuries in Maxillofacial Trauma Patients reporting to a Tertiary Trauma Centre in Central Kerala

BINDU DAS R,*
ARUN THANKAMONY JAYANTHI,
DAVID THARAKAN K R,
DEEPTI SIMON

Abstract

Introduction: The aim of the study was to determine the clinical and radiological profile of patients with cervical spine injuries in maxillofacial trauma patients following road traffic accidents in central Kerala. Percentage of cervical spine injuries associated with maxillofacial injuries, age and sex distribution, frequency of the type of cervical spine injury were studied. Materials & Methods A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted on two hundred and fifty patients with maxillofacial trauma who reported to the Department Of Oral and Maxillofacial surgery, Government Dental College, Kottayam between July 2023 and June 2024 and who gave the consent for the study. Clinical evaluation of cervical spine was undertaken as the part of the initial assessment of all trauma patients. Neck pain was assessed with visual analog scale of 1-10 and altered sensations in upper limbs were evaluated .Lateral neck x-ray was taken to rule out cervical injury in all patients without C.T scan. The data was entered into MS excel spread sheet and analysed using SPSS version 20. Proportions were used to study categorical variables, mean and standard deviation were used for quantitative variables. Chi square test was used to test the difference in proportions of categorical variables. p values less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant in the data. Conclusion The study has shown that there is a statistically significant occurrence of cervical spine injuries in maxillofacial trauma victims in road traffic accidents. The presence of maxillofacial trauma with cervical spine injury mandates prompt management with immediate reference to neurosurgeon to reduce morbidity.