Vertebral Fracture Detection Differences of Axial Section Computed Tomography Images and Coronal Sagittal Reformat Images in Trauma Cases

Abstract

Aim:To investigate the contribution of multiplanar sections to vertebral fracture detection by examining the multislice computed tomography (CT) images of patients who were referred to our emergency department (ED) with trauma.Materials and Methods:We scanned 896 patients who were referred to our ED between 01.06.2016 and 01.06.2018 and whose multislice CTs were taken with a vertebral fracture pre-diagnosis made by the ED physician. The differences between axial and coronal sagittal reformat images in the detection of vertebral fractures were compared in 78 cases that were found with a fracture in their tomographies.Results:The average age of the 78 cases was 55.93±23.23 years. In total, 145 fractures were detected in the 78 cases. Twenty-four fractures were detected in 12 cases in the cervical area, 67 were detected in 36 cases in the thoracic area, and 54 fractures were detected in 30 cases in the lumbar area. While there were no significant differences between axial and coronal sagittal reformat imaging techniques in the differentiation of cervical fractures, differences were found between the techniques for thoracic and lumbar fractures (p=0.636, p<0.001, p=0.001, respectively). When the fracture detection rates of the axial and coronal sagittal imaging techniques were assessed in terms of the anatomic region, there were significant differences in corpus assessment (p<0.001), while there were no significant differences in transverse process and lamina fractures (p=0.127, p=0.083).Conclusion:In post-trauma physical examination, coronal sagittal reformat imaging is more sensitive when compared with axial imaging in patients having pain in the thoracic and lumbar region, and we believe that it will useful to physicians in differentiating especially corpus fractures.

Keywords

• trauma
• coronal sagittal reformat imaging
• axial imaging
• vertebral fracture