Keywords:
Emergency, Musculoskeletal spine, CT, MR, Technical aspects, Trauma
Authors:
G. Harisis, H. Kavnoudias, A. Zia, E. Paul, P. Marovic; Melbourne, VIC/AU
DOI:
10.26044/ranzcr2021/R-0272
Methods and materials
- The study was performed at a Level 1 tertiary referral trauma centre in Melbourne, Australia with ethics approval (project number 189/20).
Patient selection
- Inclusion
- All patients who received a CT cervical spine for the indication of traum and a subsequent MRI cervical spine during the same hospital admission over a 5 year period between 1/1/2015 and 31/12/2019.
- All patients were scanned with cervical spine immobilisation
- Exclusion:
- Patients excluded if CT demonstrated a fracture,
- if MRI was reported as non-diagnostic
- If initial CT was performed at an external institution
- The CT and MRI reports of those patients included in the study were reviewed on the hospital PACS system and further demographic data (age, sex mechanism of injury), were obtained from the patients electronic medical records (Powerchart ®).
Outcomes measured
The following data was recorded based on retrospective review of the original finalised (consultant approved) radiologist reports:
- Demographics
- Mechanism of injury
- Time between CT and MRI (days)
- Subjective anterior disc space widening on CT
- Presence and level of ALL injury on MRI
Statistical analysis
- Data tabulated using Microsoft Excel.
- Statistical analysis was performed on SPSS with the help of a biostatistician.
- Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values were calculated along with 95% confidence intervals.