A 70-year observational study conducted in the UK has reported the trends in survival after traumatic spinal cord injury. The team studied 5,483 patients injured between 1943 and 2010, and observed a significant improvement in life expectancy between 1950 and 1980, after which survival plateaued, followed by a small improvement after 2010. The team also used the data to provide current life expectancy estimates for individuals with spinal cord injury, which range from 18.4% to 88.4% compared with the general population, depending on sex, current age and type of injury.
References
Savic, G. et al. Long-term survival after traumatic spinal cord injury: a 70-year British study. Spinal Cord http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sc.2017.23 (2017)
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Ridler, C. Insights into life expectancy after spinal cord injury. Nat Rev Neurol 13, 258 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2017.53
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2017.53