False positive perfusion lung scintiscans in tetraplegic patients: a case series.

An accurate diagnosis of pulmonary embolism is essential to prevent excessive morbidity and mortality from either inappropriate therapy or failure to institute anticoagulation. The diagnosis of pulmonary embolism in tetraplegic spinal cord injury patients is complicated by frequent inability to perform the ventilation portion of the ventilation-perfusion scintiscan (V/Q scan) and by controversy regarding classification of defects on perfusion-only scans, as well as by coexisting pulmonary disease, systemic illness, related injuries, and the tendency for tetraplegic patients to have unexplained fever. This report describes three tetraplegic ventilator-dependent patients with hypoxic respiratory failure and normal chest radiographs who had large defects on perfusion-only lung scans.

Superiority of motor level over single neurological level in categorizing tetraplegia.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the superiority of the American Spinal Injury Association motor level (ML) and upper extremity motor score (UEMS) to the neurological level (NL) in determining self care function in motor complete tetraplegia. Fifty subjects with traumatic motor complete tetraplegia, NL C4-C8, were evaluated at admission and 12 months post injury. At both time periods NL, ML, and UEMS were determined.