Traumatic spinal cord injuries in Turkey: a nation-wide epidemiological study

Study design: An epidemiological study conducted all over the country. Objective: The present retrospective study was conducted to survey the new traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) cases during 1992 in Turkey. Setting: Intensive care units, emergency services and departments of orthop aedic surgery, neurosurgery and rehabilitation of state hospitals, rehabili tation centers: military and university hospitals. Methods: Postal questionnaires were used for data collection and the record s from medical institutes nation-wide were reviewed for the analysis of the epidemiological factors. Results: Five hundred and eighty-one new traumatic SCI cases were reported in 1992. The annual incidence was found to be 12.7 per million population. Male to female ratio was 2.5 : 1 and the average age at injury was 35.5+/-1 5.1 (35.4+/-14.8 for males and 35.9+/-16.0 for females). The most common ca use of injury was motor vehicle accidents (48.8%) followed by falls (36.5%) , stab wounds (3.3%), gunshot injuries (1.9%) and injuries from diving (1.2 %). One hundred and eighty-seven patients (32.18%) were tetraplegic and 394 patients (67.8%) were paraplegic. The most common level of injury was C5 a mong tetraplegics and T12 among paraplegics. The most prevalent associated injury was head trauma followed by extremity fractures. Severe head trauma resulting in death may obscure the real incidence of SCI and may cause unde rreporting of cases in epidemiological studies. Conclusion: Considering that motor vehicle accidents and falls were found t o be the leading causes of traumatic SCI, it was concluded that the prevent ion measures should be focused mainly on these in order to reduce the frequ ency of SCI in Turkey.