Abstract
Purpose: Rogers’ wiring is the most generally used method as stabilization of the cervical distractive-flexion injuries. When there is fracture of the spinous process on the cranial side, it may be easily cut out during tightening of a wire or in the course of rehabilitation. Comparing to Rogers’ wiring, sublaminar-wiring methods reported by Watts in 1993 is useful for the cases of fracture of the spinous process. However, the method is not generally used. The purpose of this paper is to examine an usefulness of the sublaminar-wiring method and our modified technique.
Materials: Ten patients with cervical distractive-flexion injury were operated on using the modified Watts’ methods.
Operative techniques: We modified as follows. Firstly, we changed a wire system to a cable one. Secondly we make sublaminar wiring easier with a looped silk thread. Namely, the thread was passed under the cranial lamina using an aneurysm-needle. The looped portion of the thread was pulled out from the cranial interlaminar space. A looped cable was passed under the lamina using this loop. The loop of the cable was placed around the spinous process. After one side of the cable was caught again on the spinous process , both ends are bounded and tightened .
Result: A reduction of the dislocated cervical spine was well maintained at the follow-up in all cases.
Conclusion: Sublaminar wiring method for distractiveflexion injuries of the cervical spine is effective and useful. Our modified technique makes sublaminar wiring safer and easier.
The abstracts were prepared by Professor Jegan Krishnan. Correspondence should be addressed to him at the Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park 5047, Australia.
