1. "Artifactual fracture-subluxation" of cervical spine in computed tomography screening sans plain radiographs.
- Author
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Dhandapani, Sivashanmugam, Salunke, Pravin, and Mukherjee, Kanchan K
- Abstract
Background Context: Computed tomography (CT) has become the sole modality of screening for cervical injury in polytrauma because of the high sensitivity, speed, and convenience, thereby eliminating the need for plain radiographs.Purpose: We report two cases of misleading artifactual fracture-subluxation of cervical spine in CT, which could have resulted in needless treatment, and describe its characteristics.Study Design: Case report and review.Methods: Two patients who were initially diagnosed with fracture-subluxation on screening CT cervical spine were later noted to have motion artifacts and were reviewed.Results: The artifactual nature of the supposed fracture-subluxation was unmasked by the soft-tissue findings of obscuration in sagittal reconstruction and duplication in axial images, along with the presence of double bony margins.Conclusions: Motion artifact in cervical CT screening can lead to a misdiagnosis of fracture subluxation. Duplication of soft tissue is highly suggestive of this motion artifact, and an additional single lateral plain radiograph may avert this pitfall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2013
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