VERTEBRAL LEVEL OF THE ENDING OF THE SPINAL-CORD AND ITS RELATIONSHIPTO THE LENGTH OF THE VERTEBRAL COLUMN IN NORTHERN TURKISH NEONATES

Racial and sex differences in the level of ending of the spinal cord o f the adult have been reported, It is lower in Africans and in females . Since such differences may affect even fetuses and newborns we aimed to study in Northern Turkish neonates. The study was made on 40 full- term newborn still-births (23 male, 17 female). In all cases, the leng th of the vertebral column, the length of the spinal cord and the body weight were measured and the vertebral level of ending of the spinal cord was noted. It was found that the termination of the spinal cord v aried from the first lumbar to the second sacral vertebra, with a mean level between L2 and L3. In female neonates, it was observed that the spinal cord ended at a slightly lower level (0.2 vertebra) than in ma les. Our findings approximately agreed with those of Barson [2] who st udied neonates in England and of Jit and Charnalia [5] in North India. However, we found that the spinal cord ended one and half vertebrae l ower in Northern Turkish neonates than in South African and South Indi an subjects. The correlations between body-weight and length of the sp inal cord, weight and length of the vertebral column, length of the sp inal cord and length of vertebral column, length of the vertebral colu mn and level of ending of the cord were statistically highly significa nt for males, females and both sexes together (p < 0.001). The longer the vertebral column, the higher the termination of the spinal cord.