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Purpose The management of cervical facet dislocation injuries remains controversial. The main purpose of this investigation was to identify whether a surgeon's geographic location or years in practice influences their preferred management of traumatic cervical facet dislocation injuries. Methods A survey was sent to 272 AO Spine members across all geographic regions and with a variety of practice experience. The survey included clinical case scenarios of cervical facet dislocation injuries and asked responders to select preferences among various diagnostic and management options. Results A total of 189 complete responses were received. Over 50% of responding surgeons in each region elected to initiate management of cervical facet dislocation injuries with an MRI, with 6 case exceptions. Overall, there was considerable agreement between American and European responders regarding management of these injuries, with only 3 cases exhibiting a significant difference. Additionally, results also exhibited considerable management agreement between those with ≤ 10 and > 10 years of practice experience, with only 2 case exceptions noted. Conclusion More than half of responders, regardless of geographical location or practice experience, identified MRI as a screening imaging modality when managing cervical facet dislocation injuries, regardless of the status of the spinal cord and prior to any additional intervention. Additionally, a majority of surgeons would elect an anterior approach for the surgical management of these injuries. The study found overall agreement in management preferences of cervical facet dislocation injuries around the globe.

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Introduction: Mortality is an important self-assessment tool in medical practice. This study assesses various factors associated with mortality in Neurosurgery ICU (NS-ICU). Methods: A prospective, cross-sectional study was carried out from January 2017 to December 2017 in 416 patients admitted to NS-ICU. The age, sex, diagnosis, GCS, pupil’s abnormality, vital parameters, laboratory parameters, comorbidities were compared in between mortality and survival group. The individual component of GCS was further evaluated. Results: Out of 416 patients, 374 (89.90%) patients were in survival group and 42 (10.10%) patients in mortality group. Trauma 188(45.20%) and Cerebrovascular accident 133(31.97%) were commonest diagnosis on admission. The GCS, eye-opening and motor component of GCS, abnormal pupils, hypertension (HTN), diabetes mellitus (DM), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), heart rate (HR), operated cases and serum urea levels were found to have significant difference between mortality and survival group. These parameters were further subjected to binary logistic regression which showed DBP (B-0.01, p=0.00), HR (B0.02, p=0.00), motor score of GCS (B-0.50, p=0.04), operated cases (B 1.13,p=0.00), abnormal pupils (B1.85,p=0.00), DM (B1.56, p=0.00) to have significant association with mortality. Conclusions: High heart rate, low diastolic BP, low motor score of Glasgow Coma Scale, abnormal pupils, diabetes mellitus and operated cases were found to be significantly associated with mortality.

Background: Tracheostomy is a commonly performed procedure in neurosurgical Intensive Care Units (ICU) performed to secure airway, aid in pulmonary toileting, and minimize ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in cases requiring prolonged mechanical ventilation. Although early tracheostomy has been advocated rampantly in recent days, its benefit over late tracheostomy and the timing itself has been very controversial. In this study, we tried to study the effect of timing of tracheostomy in the outcome of patients in our ICU. Materials and methods: This is a retrospective study carried out over a period of one and a half years in a tertiary care center in western Nepal. Early tracheostomy was defined as those done within 4 days of endotracheal intubation and late were those done thereafter. Outcomes were studied in terms of length of ICU stay, hospital stay, mechanical ventilation, duration of tracheostomy in situ, VAP and mortality and complication over 90 days. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS 20.0. Results: There were 67 cases included in the study, out of which 27(40.3%) underwent early and 40 (59.7%) underwent late tracheostomy. The Mean duration of ICU stay, tracheostomy in situ duration, mechanical ventilation duration, and VAP were the parameters showing a significant difference between the two groups. There were 13 (19.4%) cases having complications in our series of which 6 (9%) of cases were from the early tracheostomy group and 7 (10.4%) of the cases were from the late tracheostomy group (p=0.63). Conclusion: Early tracheostomy is beneficial in a neurosurgical patient in terms of a decrease in ICU stay, duration of mechanical ventilation, duration of tracheostomy in situ, and VAP.