Journal of pediatric surgery
October 16, 2026 · via Europe PMC
Declining Rates of Cervical Spine Injury and Operative Intervention in Pediatric Trauma: A National TQIP Analysis.
Wallace MW, Glasgow S, Wan HY, Kahan AM, Ravindra VM, Swendiman RA, Russell KW.
AI summary — for doctors, generated from the abstract only
The incidence of cervical spine injury and operative intervention in injured US children appears to be declining, though the abstract's numeric results are cut off.
What was studied
Analysis of TQIP data from 2017-2024 of children aged 0-17 with blunt trauma, identifying cervical spine injuries and related operations by ICD-10 codes and assessing trends by age group.
Key findings
- Among 805,466 pediatric blunt trauma patients, overall CSI incidence was 1.9%
- The authors conclude CSI incidence is decreasing over time, but trend magnitudes are missing from the abstract
- Declines may reflect public health measures such as vehicle safety standards, restraint laws and helmet laws
Clinical relevance
Suggests prevention measures may be reducing a devastating injury pattern.
Who should care
Limitations
The abstract is truncated, so trend statistics, operative rates and age-group results are unavailable; the data are observational and cannot show that policies caused the decline.
CSI appears to be declining in pediatric trauma, but exact figures require the full paper.
This is an AI-generated summary of the published abstract, not a clinical recommendation. It may not reflect the full text or subsequent updates — verify against the original source before acting on it.
Abstract
Introduction
Pediatric cervical spine injuries (CSI) are present in 1-2% of all pediatric traumatic injuries and can be devastating. Contemporary injury prevention measures may decrease CSI incidence, however, their impact on pediatric CSI incidence are unknown. We aimed to evaluate contemporary epidemiological data of pediatric CSI in the United States.
Methods
We evaluated the incidence of pediatric CSI using the Trauma Quality Improvement Program (TQIP) database from 2017-2024. Amongst children (age 0-17) with blunt trauma, CSI cases and CSI-related operative interventions were identified using ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS codes, respectively. Trends in the incidence of overall and operative CSI were assessed for the total cohort and across age groups. P<0.05 was defined as statistically significant.
Results
Among 805,466 pediatric patients with blunt trauma the overall incidence of CSI was 1.9% (<1 years: 0.5%, 1-4 years: 1.0%, 5-9 years: 0.9%, 10-14 years: 1.7%, 15-17 years: 4.4%). Increasing age and motor vehicle accident mechanism were independently associated with CSI. There was a significant decrease in overall- (2017: 2.08 %, 2024: 1.8%) and operative- (2017: 15.3%, 2024: 12.5%) CSI incidence across the study period, not explained by changes in overall trauma volume.
Conclusions
Among traumatically injured children presenting to trauma centers in the United States, the incidence of CSI is decreasing over time. These findings suggest that public health measures such as improving vehicle safety standards, restraint- and helmet-laws may have a measurable impact on this potentially devastating pediatric injury pattern.
DOI
10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2026.163549
PMID
42887649
Research metadata (titles, abstracts, authors, publication dates) is sourced from Europe PMC, which aggregates content from PubMed/MEDLINE, PubMed Central, and other providers under the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM/NCBI). NLM does not claim copyright on abstracts; the original journal publishers or authors may hold rights to the full articles. AI-generated summaries are derived only from the abstract, never the full text, and are always labeled as AI-generated.
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