RT Journal
A1 Dvorak, Marcel F.
A1 Kingwell, Stephen P.
A1 Noonan, Vanessa K.
A1 Fisher, Charles G.
A1 Keynan, Ory
T1 Relationship of Neural Axis Level of Injury to Motor Recovery and Health-Related Quality of Life in Patients with a Thoracolumbar Spinal Injury
JF The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery
JO The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery
YR 2011
FD February 16
VO 93
IS 4
SP e12 3
OP 4
DO 
UL http://dx.doi.org/
AB 
First of all, the area of maximal compression was determined for all patients from preoperative imaging studies and was not inferred from images acquired after surgery. For some patients, a preoperative MRI was available and, for those patients, that modality was used to determine the spinal vertebral level of maximal spinal canal occlusion. For other patients, this information was determined from a preoperative computerized axial tomography (CT) scan. For a T12-L1 fracture dislocation, for example, our treatment protocol is to perform a CT scan while the patient is still in the emergency department but to urgently take the patient to the operating room for surgical open reduction and stabilization without waiting for an MRI scan to be performed. Although most of our patients underwent preoperative MRI scans, this was not the case for all of them.