BackgroundThere are more than 5 million motor vehicle collisions annually in the United States, resulting in more than 2 million injured occupants. The most common types of collisions are head-on impacts, rear-ends, side-swipes, and t-bones, whilst the most common injury sites are the cervical and lumbar spine. The purpose of this retrospective record review was to examine the differences in frequency of cervical and lumbar pathology across and between these common collision types.MethodsNine-hundred and three patients were included in this analysis, 88 of whom described being in a head-on collision, 546 in a rear-end, 123 in a side-swipe, and 146 in a t-bone. Four diagnoses were examined, two each for the cervical and lumbar regions: disc derangement and radiculitis. Pearson’s Chi-squared contingency tables were used to test whether there were differences in clinical diagnosis frequencies across collision type, while Marascuilo’s post hoc multiple proportion comparisons were conducted to determine inter-group differences.ResultsThere were significant differences across collision type for cervical disc derangement (p < 0.0001), cervical radiculitis (p < 0.00001), lumbar disc derangement (p = 0.0002) and lumbar radiculitis (p < 0.00001). There were also significant differences in pathology frequency between collision types.ConclusionsSymptomatic cervical disc derangements were more common among patients who were involved in aside-swipe, whereas symptomatic lumbar disc derangements were more common among those in head-on or side-swipe collisions. Expanded controlled prospective studies are encouraged to better understand the mechanisms of injury and determine radiculitis tolerance limits.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12891-017-1797-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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