Epidemiology of traumatic spinal cord injury in Tianjin, China

Study design: A retrospective epidemiological study. Objectives: To provide recent epidemiological characteristics of traumatic spinal cord injuries (TSCIs) in adults living in Tianjin. Setting: Tianjin, China. Methods: This study included all TSCI patients aged 15 years or older who were admitted to tertiary hospitals in Tianjin from 2004 to 2008. Epidemiological characteristics, such as age, sex, date of admission, causes of injury, level of injury, America Spinal Injury Association impairment scale and date of discharge were included. Results: A total of 869 patients were included, with an estimated annual incidence was 23.7 per million populations. The male/female ratio was 5.63:1. Mean age of TSCI was 46.0 +/- 14.2 years (men 45.8 +/- 14.2 years, women 47.5 +/- 14.5 years), with a range of 16-90 years. Falls were regarded as the leading causes of injury, followed by motor vehicle collisions. The lesion level was cervical in 71.5%, thoracic in 13.3% and lumbar/sacral in 15.1%. The frequency of tetraplegia (71.5%) was higher than paraplegia (28.5%), and roughly four-fifth of tetraplegia cases were incomplete injury. Conclusion: To our knowledge, national or local epidemiological study of spinal cord injury (SCI) has not been carried out previously in China. The number of SCI patients in this country is large and would increase gradually. Similar to other developing countries, falls were the main causes of TSCI. Low falls were more common in those over 60 years old. As the ageing society coming, the number of low falls-induced TSCI would increase gradually, which poses a challenge to the society health system. Spinal Cord (2011) 49, 386-390; doi:10.1038/sc.2010.130; published online 5 October 2010