Cervical spine injuries resulting from collision sports

Abstract

Acute traumatic lesions of spine as a result of ‘collision sports’ such as football, wrestling, and boxing are of particular significance since these injuries most frequently involve the cervical spine in males, and the resulting neurologic deficit if permanent, is tetraplegia. Forty-six (3.5 per cent) of 1305 patients with spinal cord injury sustained cervical spinal cord trauma during collision sports and 84 per cent of these remained tetraplegic. Their neurological patterns of deficit, radiological abnormalities, mechanism of injury and management are presented in detail. To minimise the severity of neurological deficit some preventive measures are also outlined. © 1981 International Medical Society of Paraplegia.