Evolution of traumatic spinal cord injury in patients with ankylosing spondylitis, in a Romanian rehabilitation clinic

Abstract

The ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a systemic, multi-factorial, chronic rheumatic disease. Patients are highly susceptible to vertebral fractures with or without spinal cord injury (AS-SCI), even after a minor trauma. The study is a retrospective descriptive survey of post-acute, traumatic AS-SCI patients, transferred from the neurosurgical department and admitted in a Romanian Neurorehabilitation Clinic, during 2010-2014. There were 11 males associating AS-SCI (0.90% of all consecutive SCI admitted cases), with an average age of 54.6 years (median 56, limits 42-73 years). The average duration between the medically diagnosed AS and the actual associated spinal fracture(-s) moment was 21.4 years (median 23; limits 10-34 years). Low-energy trauma was incriminated in 54.5% cases. The spinal level of fracture was: cervical (four cases), thoracic (three), lumbar (four), assessed at admission as: American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale (AIS) A (four subjects), C (five) and D (two). By the time of discharge, neither patient has neurologically deteriorated; five patients (45.5%) improved of at least grade 1 (AIS). The overall complications were mainly infections: symptomatic urinary tract infections (seven patients; 63.6%), pulmonary (three subjects; 27.3%) and spondylodiscitis (one case; 9%). The average follow-up period was 15.3 months (median 12; limits 1-48 months) after discharge; three subjects gained functional improvement to AIS-E. The clinical profile (different risk factors, mechanisms, types and levels of spinal fractures, additional encephalic and/or cord lesions, co-morbidities), different post-surgical and/or general complications acquired during admission in our rehabilitation ward, served us for future prevention strategies and a better therapeutic management.