Surgeries for Cervical Spine and Spinal Cord Trauma

Dear Colleagues,

The anatomy and mobility of the cervical spine make it structurally susceptible to trauma, and injury to the cervical spine can result in significant and long-term disability. When instability or spinal cord compression is diagnosed after trauma, surgery is often the treatment of choice to stabilize the cervical spine, facilitate early mobilization, and increase the chances of neurological recovery. Classification systems for both upper cervical and subaxial cervical spine injury have been proposed to guide the physician in the treatment of cervical spine injury, but surgical indication as well as surgical approach can still be ambiguous.
The demographics of cervical spine trauma and associated spinal cord injury is evolving as the world population ages. Compared to younger patients who sustain injury through high-energy trauma such as motor vehicle accidents and sports injuries, elderly patients tend to be injured through minor trauma such as ground level falls. Their injury is complicated by the pre-existing degenerative changes that are seen in the cervical spine of elderly people, which decrease the mobility of the cervical spine, narrow the spinal canal, and make the spine more susceptible to injury through mild trauma, even if the patient was asymptomatic before injury. Furthermore, older patients are often associated with comorbidities that increase their risk of perioperative complications.
This Special Issue is proposed to assemble studies dealing with all aspects of the surgical treatment of cervical spine injury with or without spinal cord injury. With the increasing frequency of older patients sustaining cervical spine trauma, one proposed focus is on the surgical treatment of elderly patients, but all studies are welcome.

Dr. Hiroyuki Katoh
Guest Editor

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