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Patients with facet dislocation treated with rapid reduction show less neurological recovery
Patients with a cervical spinal cord injury and facet dislocation treated with rapid reduction displayed less overall neurological recovery compared to patients without facet dislocation in this study.
“Compared to patients without [facet dislocation] FD, cervical [spinal cord injury] SCI patients with FD tended to present with a more severe degree of initial injury and displayed less potential for motor recovery at 1-year follow-up,” the researchers stated in the abstract.
Researchers classified the degree of impairment in these patients using the American Spinal Injury Association impairment scale and found that patients with FD had significantly worse baseline impairment over those without FD, according to the abstract.
One year after surgery, patients with FD had an American Spinal Injury Association motor score improvement of 18 points, while patients without FD showed an improvement of 27.9 points. Mean length of acute hospitalization was also higher in the FD group, at 41.2 days, compared to 30 days in patients without FD.