Journal of medical case reports
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Review Case Reports
Atlanto-occipital dislocation in a patient presenting with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: a case report and literature review.
Atlanto-occipital dislocation is a rare and severe injury of the upper spine associated with a very poor prognosis. ⋯ A plausible cause for the trauma was myocardial infarction which led to the car accident and the major trauma in relation to the obviously minor trauma mechanism. With this case report we aim to familiarize clinicians with the mechanism of injury that will assist in the diagnosis of atlanto-occipital dislocation. Furthermore, we seek to emphasize that patients presenting with electrocardiographic signs of myocardial ischemia after high-energy trauma should primarily be transported to a trauma facility in a percutaneous coronary intervention-capable center rather than the catheterization laboratory directly.