• Dong-Yeong Lee, Young-Jin Park, Hyun-Jung Kim, Hyeong-Sik Ahn, Sun-Chul Hwang, and Dong-Hee Kim.
• Armed Forces Deagu Hospital, Daegu, Republic of Korea; Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Medicine, Gyeongsang National University School of Medicine and Gyeongsang National University Hospital, Jinju, Republic of Korea.
• Acta Orthop Traumatol Turc. 2018 Mar 1; 52 (2): 101-108.

IntroductionThe aim of this study is to evaluate whether early (<8 h) surgical decompression is better in improving neurologic outcomes than late (≥8 h) surgical decompression for traumatic spinal cord injury (tSCI).MethodsThe various electronic databases were used to detect relevant articles published up until May 2016 that compared the outcomes of early versus late surgery for tSCI. Data searching, extraction, analysis, and quality assessment were performed according to Cochrane Collaboration guidelines. The results are presented as relative ratio (RR) for binary outcomes and mean difference (MD) for continuous outcomes with 95% confidence intervals (CIs).ResultsSeven studies were finally included in this meta-analysis. There were significant differences between the 2 groups in neurologic improvement (MD = 0.54, 95% CI = -18.52 to -7.02, P < 0.0001) and length of hospital stay (MD = -12.77, 95% CI = 0.34-0.74, P < 0.00001). However, no significant differences were found between the 2 groups in perioperative complications (OR = 0.95, 95% CI = 0.35-2.61, P = 0.92).ConclusionsEarly surgical decompression within 8 h after tSCI was beneficial in terms of neurologic improvement compared with late surgery. Early surgical decompression (within 8 h) is recommended for patients with tSCI.Level Of EvidenceLevel III, therapeutic study.Copyright © 2017 Turkish Association of Orthopaedics and Traumatology. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

11 keywords...

hide…