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Trend differences in cervical spinal cord injuries before and after the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic

Spinal Cord Series and Cases volume 10, Article number: 19 (2024) Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Study design

Cross-Sectional Study.

Objectives

To investigate the changes in the characteristics of cervical spinal cord injuries (CSCI) before and after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic among patients transported to our hospital in Japan.

Setting

Hospital with an emergency center in Chiba, Japan.

Methods

Patients eligible for the study were those transported within 24 h of injury and diagnosed with cervical spinal cord injury between January 2018 and December 2021 at our hospital. Medical records were retrospectively examined to investigate the number and characteristics of patients with CSCI. The clinical variables of patients with CSCI were compared according to the time of admission as related to the COVID-19 pandemic: 2018-19 (before) or 2020-21 (after).

Results

The total number of patients with CSCI from 2018 to 2021 was 108, with 57 before the COVID-19 pandemic and 51 after the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of severe cases with an injury severity score (ISS) of >16 decreased after COVID-19 (p < 0.05). Falls on level surfaces were the most common cause of injury both before and after COVID-19. Although the ranking of traffic accidents decreased after COVID-19, among those, the number of bicycle injuries tended to increase.

Conclusions

The number of serious cases with an ISS > 16 decreased, presumably because of the decline in high-energy trauma due to the background decrease in the number of traffic accidents.

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Fig. 1: Number of patients transported to our hospital per month.
Fig. 2: Differences in causes of injury before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Data availability

The datasets used in this study are publicly available.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.com) for English language editing.

Funding

The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, The Jikei University Kashiwa Hospital, Chiba, Japan

    Hirotaka Fukushima, Chikara Ushiku, Shoshi Akiyama, Shinji Saito & Hiroki Wakiya

  2. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, The Jikei University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

    Hirotaka Fukushima, Chikara Ushiku, Shoshi Akiyama, Shinji Saito, Hiroki Wakiya & Mitsuru Saito

  3. Department of Emergency Medicine, The Jikei University Kashiwa Hospital, Chiba, Japan

    Kenji Okuno

Authors
  1. Hirotaka Fukushima
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  5. Hiroki Wakiya
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Contributions

HF was responsible for data curation and writing the original draft of the manuscript. CU was responsible for the formal analysis, investigation, and review and editing of the manuscript. SA and KO were responsible for the formal analysis. SS and HW were responsible for data curation. MS was responsible for review and editing of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chikara Ushiku.

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Ethical approval

This study was performed in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board 32-078(10153).

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Fukushima, H., Ushiku, C., Akiyama, S. et al. Trend differences in cervical spinal cord injuries before and after the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Spinal Cord Ser Cases 10, 19 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41394-024-00633-6

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