title: Injuries of the upper cervical spine: A series of 28 cases.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There are very few published reports of upper cervical spine injuries from our country and there is a heavy bias towards operative treatment of these injuries. We present below our experience of upper cervical injuries over the last four years.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty eight patients (20 males, 8 females) with upper cervical spine injury (including Occiput, Atlas and Axis) were treated and were followed-up for an average of 11.2 months. The data was analyzed retrospectively with regards to the location and type of injury, the treatment offered (conservative or operative) as well as the final clinical and radiological outcome.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The clinico-radiological outcome of treatment of these injuries is mostly very good with few complications. Other than a single case of mortality due to associated head injury there were no major complications.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Management of these patients needs a proper evaluation to arrive at the type of injury and prompt conservative or operative treatment. Treatment is usually safe and effective with good clinical and radiological outcome.
authors.affiliation: Park Clinic and Kothari Medical Center, Kolkata, India.
authors.forename: Saumyajit
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Basu
authors.forename: Sandip
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chatterjee
authors.forename: Manoj Kumar
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Bhattacharya
authors.forename: Kaushik
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Seal