Management of Misdiagnosed Bilateral Cervical Facet Dislocation: A Case Report

Despite improvement in technology and decision-making, misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis of cervical spine injuries in trauma patients can cause severe irreparable neurological damage.

We present here a 56-year-old man, with a history of old bilateral C4-C5 dislocation who, contrarily to classically described unfavorable results of cranial traction in patients with older than 3 weeks cervical injury, underwent optimal reduction under cranial traction for four days and surgical intervention with an anterior surgical approach.

Relatively high incidence of missed cervical spine injuries in polytrauma patients illustrates that proper clinical examination, use of designed protocols for clearance of cervical trauma, and accurate interpretation of radiological imaging can sometimes be neglected.