Original Article

THORACOLUMBAR FRACTURES: SHOULD THEY BE OPERATED ACCORDING TO THORACOLUMBAR INJURY CLASSIFICATION AND SEVERITY SCORE (TLICS)?

  • Mehmet TIRYAKI
  • Yusuf Emrah GERGIN
  • Bekir Can KENDIRLIOĞLU
  • Hüseyin DEMIR
  • Hidayet Şafak ÇINE

Received Date: 24.03.2016 Accepted Date: 29.05.2016 J Turk Spinal Surg 2016;27(3):153-158

Objective:

The aim of the study is to evaluate patients who were operated for thoracal and lumbar fractures were match up with the thoracolumbar injury classification and severity score (TLICS) surgical criterias.

Materials and Method:

We inspected 38 patients who were operated for thoracal and lumbar fractures between June-2014 and June-2016 at Dr. Lütfi Kırdar Kartal Training and Research Hospital Neurosurgery Clinic. The informations were collected from the patients file archieves rethrospectively. We calculated the TLICS scores of the operated patients and evaluated that surgery decision was correct or not according to TLICS.

Results:

We inspected 17 female and 21 male patients. 13 patients were operated for thoracal and 25 patients were operated for lumbar fractures. According to TLICS scores 17 patients(44.7%) calculated as surgical, 15 patients(39.4%) as surgeon’s choice and 6 patients(15,7%) as non-surgical of total 38 patients.

Conclusions:

TLICS focuses on three important aspects of thoracolumbar fractures and may be useful to choose conservative treatment or surgery according to the final score. The non-surgical treatment recommendation for the TLICS scores has limitations in some patients who may need to receive operative treatment in the future because of a progressive symptomatology.

Keywords: Thoracolumbar fractures, TLICS, Burst fractures