Fracturas inestables de la columna vertebral: presentación de una serie de casos

introduction: present paper was conducted due to the high incidence of traumatic vertebral lesions with medullary lesion or not present in patients seen in the emergency department of "enrique cabrera" hospital. the aim of present paper was to verify a series of patients with unstable vertebral fractures and also to assess its clinical course. methods: an interventional prospective study was conducted in 15 patients presenting with unstable vertebral factures from 1990 to 2001. all patients underwent a lateral and preoperative and postoperative routine radiological study. according the frankel's classification the preoperative and postoperative clinical picture was registered. results: there was a male sex predominance (86.6%) and mean age was of 35,2 years. the more involved vertebral segment was the t12-l1 and the mechanisms causing the predominant lesions were the height falls and the road accidents. ten patients were operated on; in all there was instrumentation and in five we used decompression of nervous elements, as well as the luque instrumentation, transpedicular corpectomy and luque instrumentation, harrington-luque and anterior decompression with ao osteosynthesis. in six patients we achieved good results, regular in two and poor in other two patients. as complication were registered the dura mater and sepsis in the operative site in a case and a rupture in one of the luque wires in other patient. conclusions: early medullary decompression and spinal stabilization are very necessary.