Predictors of Neurological Outcome Following Subaxial Cervical Spine Trauma

Background The treatment of traumatic subaxial cervical spine injuries remains controversial. The American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) impairment scale (AIS) is a widely-used metric to score neurological function after spinal cord injury (SCI). Here, we evaluated the outcomes of patients who underwent treatment of subaxial cervical spine injuries to identify predictors of neurologic function after injury and treatment. Methods We performed a retrospective logistic regression analysis to determine predictors of neurological outcome; 76 patients met the inclusion criteria and presented for a three-month follow-up. The mean age was 50.6 +/- 18.7 years old and the majority of patients were male (n=49, 64%). Results The majority of patients had stable AIS scores at three months (n=56, 74%). A subset of patients showed improvement at three months (n=16, 21%), while a small subset of patients had neurological decline at three months (n=4, 5%). In our model, increasing patient age (odds ratio [OR] 1.39, 1.10-2.61 95% confidence interval [CI], P<0.001) and a previous or current diagnosis of cancer (OR 22.4, 1.25-820 95% CI, P= 0.04) significantly increased the odds of neurological decline at three months. In patients treated surgically, we found that delay in surgical treatment (>24 hours) was associated with a decreased odds of neurological improvement (OR 0.24, 0.05-0.99 95% CI, P=0.048). Cervical spine injuries are heterogeneous and difficult to manage. Conclusion We found that increasing patient age and an oncologic history were associated with neurological deterioration while a delay in surgical treatment was associated with decreased odds of improvement. These predictors of outcome may be used to guide prognosis and treatment decisions.