Spinal injury - Optimising the imaging options

There have been numerous documented attempts in formulating risk-based guidelines for the exclusion of spinal injury using conventional radiography. Although the advent of computed tomography (CT) (including spiral and multi-slice) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) confirmed the known limitations of conventional radiography, there is still a requirement to define optional use of these modalities in a trauma setting. This chapter addresses these issues by reviewing the literature and provides a synopsis of the current thinking in the appropriate sections (adult, paediatric, symptomatic, asymptomatic, etc.) in the quest of finding out the correct answers on how best to exclude confirm spinal trauma. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.