C-Spine Clearance among children 5 years or younger

Trauma

You can imagine how could be difficult to clear C-spin of  4 years old child after a MVC? Pretty scary! J Trauma Acute Care Surg published study that Absence of clinical findings reliably excludes unstable cervical spine injuries in children 5 years or younger. This study was a a retrospective study among 2,972 preelementary trauma patients from 1998 to 2010. Twenty-two (0.74%) had confirmed cervical spine injuries. All patients had clinical findings suggestive of or diagnostic for cervical spine injury; 18 (82%) had abnormal neurological examination result, 2 (9%) had torticollis, and 2 (9%) had neck pain. They Recommend to reserve CT for symptomatic patients.

 

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