Turkish Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 2001 , Vol 47 , Num 1

Servikal Traksiyonun Spinal Yapılar Üzerine Etkilerinin Bilgisayarlı Tomografi İle Değerlendirilmesi

Hidayet Sarı 1 ,İlhan Karacan 2 ,Haluk Akman 3
1 İstanbul Üniversitesi Cerrahpaşa Tıp Fakültesi, Fiziksel Tıp ve Rehabilitasyon Anabilim Dalı, İstanbul, Türkiye
2 Serbest Fiziyatrist
3 Serbest Hekim, Radyolog

Evaluation of the Effects of Cervical Traction on Spinal Structures by Computerized Tomography  Spinal traction is a technique frequently applied to patients with cervical disc herniation. The effect of cervical traction is the decrease in pain and the acceleration in healing as a clinical observation. The aim of this study was to measure the effect of static traction on cervical spinal structures by computed tomography (CT). In this study 13 patients with cervical disc herniation were evaluated. A special traction device was used called Cerrahpaşa cervical traction model. The patients were supine on the CT table. A 20 kg static traction was applied to the patients for 20 minutes, while they were in the gantry of CT. As a result of the traction the size of the herniation was decreased by 26.9 %, the spinal space size increased by 5.7 %, the intervertebral disc spaces expanded, the length of the cervical colon increased by 7.7 %. All aforementioned were statistically significant. As a result, it can be stated that static cervical traction decreases the volume of herniated disc by widening of intervertebral disc space and strecthing the posterior longitudinal ligament in cervical disc herniation. Key words: Cervical spinal structure, traction, computed tomography

Keywords : Cervical spinal structure, traction, computed tomography