A novel case of “ambulatory” cervical spondyloptosis: case report with literature review

Background Cervical spondyloptosis is an extreme variant of cervical spinal injury where patients usually present with disabling neurological deficits. Presentation of these patients without significant morbidity is very rare and we could only find sporadic case reports in literature involving traum...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European spine journal 2014-05, Vol.23 (Suppl 2), p.161-166
Main Authors: Mamindla, Ravi Kumar, Kumar, Ashish, Bhattacharjee, Suchanda, Sahu, Barada P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accidental Falls
Case Report
Case reports
Cervical Vertebrae - diagnostic imaging
Cervical Vertebrae - injuries
Cervical Vertebrae - pathology
Cervical Vertebrae - surgery
Diskectomy
Female
Humans
Hypesthesia - etiology
Literature reviews
Lower Extremity - innervation
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Middle Aged
Morbidity
Muscle Weakness - etiology
Neurological diseases
Neurosurgery
Paresthesia - etiology
Patients
Spinal Cord Compression - diagnosis
Spinal Cord Compression - etiology
Spinal Cord Compression - surgery
Spondylolisthesis - complications
Spondylolisthesis - diagnosis
Spondylolisthesis - surgery
Surgical Orthopedics
Tomography, X-Ray Computed
Vertebrae
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Description
Summary:Background Cervical spondyloptosis is an extreme variant of cervical spinal injury where patients usually present with disabling neurological deficits. Presentation of these patients without significant morbidity is very rare and we could only find sporadic case reports in literature involving traumatic cervical spondyloptosis without neurological deficits. Usually such patients get spared due to expansion of spinal canal after fracture of posterior vertebral elements. Case summary We report a case of traumatic C5/C6 spondyloptosis in an ambulatory patient despite having an intact posterior vertebral arch. This patient was managed successfully with anterior cervical fusion. Conclusion To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case report of its kind as it exemplifies the rarity of such an occurrence and underlines the importance of timely management to maintain such preserved neurological status.
ISSN:0940-6719
1432-0932
DOI:10.1007/s00586-013-2827-0