Timing of decompression in patients with acute spinal cord injury: a systematic review

Study Design: Systematic review. Objective: To conduct a systematic review and synthesis of the literature to assess the comparative effectiveness, safety, and cost-effectiveness of early (24 hours) in adults with acute spinal cord injury (SCI). Methods: A systematic search was conducted of Medline, EMBASE, the Cochrane Collaboration Library, and Google Scholar to identify studies published through November 6, 2014. Studies published in any language, in humans, and with an abstract were considered for inclusion. Included studies were critically appraised and the overall strength of evidence was determined using methods proposed by the Grading of Recommendation Assessment, Development and Evaluation working group. Results: The search yielded 449 potentially relevant citations. Sixteen additional primary studies were identified through other sources. Six studies met inclusion criteria. All but 2 studies were considered to have moderately high risk of bias. Across studies and injury levels, the impact of early surgical decompression (