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CC BY 4.0 · Indian Journal of Neurosurgery 2024; 13(01): 068-072
DOI: 10.1055/s-0043-1771496
Case Report

What Factors Influence the Final Outcome in Occipital Condyle Fractures?

U. S. Srinivasan
1   Department of Neurosurgery, Sri Balaji Hospitals, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
,
Al-Busaidi Ali Sultan
2   Department of Radiology, Nizwa Hospital, Nizwa, Oman
,
Eltayeb Abdalla Ali Mubarak
3   Department of Surgery, Nizwa Hospital, Nizwa, Oman
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Abstract

Introduction Diagnosis of occipital condyle fracture (OCF) following a trauma needs high awareness among the trauma surgeons.

Aim In our study, we attempt to discern if any factor or a combination of factors influences the final outcome following OCF.

Materials and Methods We prospectively analyzed the outcome in OCF patients admitted during 2017 to 2019 at our center. We had 14 patients with polytrauma with OCF. Among them two were lost for follow-up. So, 12 patients were followed up for 6 months after injury. The following 10 factors were analyzed—age, sex, injury, Glasgow Coma Scale, Injury Severity Score, spinal injury, associated injuries, blood pressure, medical conditions, and surgical intervention. Outcome was divided into good and poor outcomes. Chi-squared test was used. All these patients were treated conservatively for OCF for 3 months.

Results There was no significant factor, since p-value was greater than 0.05 for all variables. Only Injury Severity Score (0.091) was close to the significant p-value. Seven patients had severe head injuries and among them one died and four had the worst outcome. Among the five patients who had spinal injuries, only two had good outcomes.

Conclusion Our results indicate that the outcome following OCF is not determined by any single factor. Injury Severity Score comes close to determining the final outcome. This indicates that the overall patient management especially of associated injuries is the determining factor in the outcome in patients who had sustained OCF.

Keywords

occipital condyle fracture - Polytrauma - head injuries


Publication History

Article published online:
10 August 2023

© 2023. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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