Systematic review of the literature for clinical and preclinical evidence related to timing of decompression following spinal cord injury (SCI).
Review of the literature in search of consensus on what constitutes the ideal time frame for surgical management of SCI.
Optimal timing for surgical management of SCI remains poorly defined. Despite multiple preclinical and clinical studies, there is still lack of consensus on the optimal time for surgery in SCI.
We systematically reviewed the literature for clinical and preclinical evidence related to timing of decompression following SCI. For clinical studies, our review included papers published in English after January 1, 1990. For preclinical studies, we limited our review to papers published after January 2001. The OVID-Medline and Web of Science databases were reviewed for preclinical studies, and the OVID-Medline, Cochrane and Embase databases were reviewed for clinical studies.
A total of 8,792 preclinical articles were identified. Of those, only 14 met our inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. A total of 25,190 clinical articles were identified. Of those, only 30 studies met our inclusion criteria and were included for analysis. Clinical studies reported on a total of 5,236 patients, of whom 1,665 underwent early decompression and 3,571 underwent late decompression. There was significant variability in the definition of early and late decompression in both clinical and preclinical studies. Preclinical data was in favor of early decompression. From a clinical standpoint, there was only level II evidence proving safety and feasibility of early decompression with no definite evidence of improved outcome for any of the two groups.
There is growing evidence in favor of early decompression following SCI. Early decompression was proven to be clinically safe and feasible but there is still no definite proof that early decompression leads to improved outcomes.
5.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 March 2021.
All research outputs
#9,609,254
of 34,410,315 outputs
Outputs from Spine
#3,164
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Outputs of similar age
#99,336
of 333,603 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Spine
#37
of 112 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,410,315 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 70th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 10,027 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.2. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 67% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 333,603 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 68% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 112 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its contemporaries.
