Prevalence of Associated Injuries of Spinal Trauma and Their Effect on Medical Utilization Among Hospitalized Adult Subjects

Description: A Nationwide Data-based Study
Results There were 51,641 cases enrolled. In general, hospitalized acute spinal trauma subjects stayed in hospital for 8.5+/-8.8 days and incurred a cost of $1,360+/-2,520 during 2000-2003 in Taiwan; 27.6% of the enrolled subjects suffered from neurological deficit, but only 17.3% underwent a surgical procedure for spinal injury. Among the cases studied, the prevalence of associated injuries were as follows: head trauma, 17.2%; chest injury, 2.9%; abdominal trauma, 1.5%; pelvic injury or fracture, 2.5%; upper limb fracture, 4.4%; lower limb fracture, 5.9%. The three major locations of acute spinal injury (cervical, thoracic, or lumbar spine) were found to be combined with unequal distributions of associated injuries. By stepwise multiple linear regression, gender, age, location of spinal injury, neurological deficit, surgical intervention and the six combined injuries were identified significantly as associated factors of the two kinds of medical utilization, length of stay (LOS) and direct medical cost. The combinations of acute spinal trauma with lower extremity injury, pelvic injury, chest injury, abdominal injury and upper extremity injury resulted in of the highest utilization of medical resources, the estimated additional LOS being 4.3, 3.6, 3.5, 2.4 and 1.2 days, respectively, and the extra medical cost calculated as being between $1,230 and $320.
Dachen Chu , Yi-Hui Lee , Ching-Heng Lin , Pesus Chou and Nan-Ping Yang BMC Health Services Research 2009, 9:137 (full text available)