Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface to the Third Edition
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Overview of vertebral injuries
- 2 Anatomic considerations
- 3 Biomechanical considerations
- 4 Imaging of vertebral trauma I: indications and controversies
- 5 Imaging of vertebral trauma II: radiography, computed tomography, and myelography
- 6 Imaging of vertebral trauma III: magnetic resonance imaging
- 7 Mechanisms of injury and their “fingerprints”
- 8 Radiologic “footprints” of vertebral injury: the ABCS
- 9 Vertebral injuries in children
- 10 Vertebral stability and instability
- 11 Normal variants and pseudofractures
- Index
Preface to the First Edition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 April 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface to the Third Edition
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Preface to the First Edition
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Overview of vertebral injuries
- 2 Anatomic considerations
- 3 Biomechanical considerations
- 4 Imaging of vertebral trauma I: indications and controversies
- 5 Imaging of vertebral trauma II: radiography, computed tomography, and myelography
- 6 Imaging of vertebral trauma III: magnetic resonance imaging
- 7 Mechanisms of injury and their “fingerprints”
- 8 Radiologic “footprints” of vertebral injury: the ABCS
- 9 Vertebral injuries in children
- 10 Vertebral stability and instability
- 11 Normal variants and pseudofractures
- Index
Summary
Vertebral trauma is a major cause of permanent disability. Although there has been an increasing number of vertebral injuries due to motor vehicle accidents, improved medical technology has salvaged the lives of individuals who suffer what were once considered uniformly fatal injuries. The key to the administration of prompt therapy and rehabilitation is the ability to properly diagnose the full extent of these injuries. The discovery of the roentgen ray was the first major technological breakthrough in diagnosing vertebral trauma, and this method remained the chief method for diagnosis until the development of computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. With these methods it is now possible to define the full extent of injury and, in the latter method, to determine the extent of spinal cord involvement.
I became interested in the subject of vertebral injury through my long and close association with Dr. John A. Gehweiler, Jr., who described many signs of subtle injury to the cervical vertebrae. The advent of multiplanar imaging confirmed the validity of the signs described by Dr. Gehweiler and other individuals interested in vertebral trauma. This book grew out of a series of lectures that I have given over the past decade and represents a systematic and practical approach to the radiography of vertebral trauma. This book is not encyclopedic in scope and does not describe every variation of every type of vertebral injury.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Imaging of Vertebral Trauma , pp. xv - xviPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011