Characteristics of traumatic spinal cord injuries in south-eastern Anatolia, Turkey: a comparative approach to 10 years' experience.

The purpose of this study was to determine the demographic and epidemiological characteristics of traumatic spinal cord-injured patients. The hospital records of 539 patients (416 men, 123 women) with spinal cord injuries (SCIs) admitted to four hospitals that were major referral centers for trauma in the south-eastern region of Turkey from 1990 to 1999 were reviewed retrospectively. The patients with SCI were investigated for two periods; the first period covered patients admitted between 1990 and 1994 during which time an influx of people from rural to urban areas occurred and firearm injuries were common. In the second period (1995-1999) the influx of people declined and firearm injuries were reduced. The most common causes of injuries were road traffic accidents (200, 37.12%), followed by falls (172, 31.90%) and bullet wounds (115, 21.34%). In the first period, incomplete paraplegia was encountered more often than in the second period (P<0.001). In conclusion, in our series, while the leading cause of SCI for the two time periods was road traffic accidents, firearm injuries for the first period and falls for the second period were second-most frequent causes of SCI. In addition, the present study suggests that demographic and epidemiological factors may affect the characteristics of SCI in a region-based population even in a 10-year period of time.