Floating Thoracic Spine Due to Noncontiguous Fracture-Dislocations of the Thoracolumbar Spine

Case Reports

. 2022 Mar 8;14(3):e22955.


doi: 10.7759/cureus.22955.


eCollection 2022 Mar.

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Case Reports

R Dinesh Iyer et al.


Cureus.


.

Abstract

The thoracolumbar spine is the most commonly afflicted area in vertebral column injuries. Here we bring up a case of a 20-year-old male who presented to our emergency department with a history of a high-velocity road traffic accident with noncontiguous two-level fracture-dislocations of the thoracolumbar spine with blunt trauma to the chest. The patient was managed with posterior reduction and instrumented postero-lateral fusion. Such an injury pattern has been reported only rarely in the literature. This report expects to highlight the unusual fracture pattern of a common injury and the challenges of managing such severe injuries intra-operatively and in the post-operative period.


Keywords:

floating spine; non-contiguous fracture-dislocations; paraplegia; spine trauma; thoraco-lumbar spine.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

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