[Multicenter coordination and future strategy in spinal cord injuries].

Recovery of neurologic function after traumatic injury to the spinal cord can be significantly improved provided prompt medico-surgical decision is being taken, aiming at limiting post traumatic tissue damages extension. In an effort to optimize the triage of these patients, we set a multicentric emergency network program, involving cooperating staff from first care, surgical and rehabilitation departments. This program has allowed us to reduce substantially the time between trauma and medico-surgical treatment. Our first objective was to obtain spinal cord decompression and spinal stabilization as quickly as possible, the set-time limit being 8 hours at most after trauma. This emergency network being operational, we started a multicentric study to test whether the neurologic recovery following a spinal cord injury could be further improved by adding.