Prospective Pilot Study Validating the Canadian C-Spine Rule Pre-hospital

A Prospective Pilot Study Validating the Canadian C-Spine Rule in a Pre-hospital Setting

This study is designed to evaluate the safety, level of performance and level of comfort with the Canadian C-Spine rule in a prehospital setting by emergency medicine undergraduates.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Alert, stable, adult patients presenting with an acute possible injury to the cervical spine

• Alert: GCS ≥ 14

• Stable:

  • systolic blood pressure ≥ 90 mmHg
  • respiratory frequency 12 - 20 / min
  • adult ≥ 18 years old

• Acute: ≤ 4

• Possible injury to the cervical spine:

  • posterior neck pain following any mechanism
  • no neck pain but visible injury above the clavicles
  • no neck pain or visible injury above the clavicles but a mechanism that indicates a cervical spine injury

Exclusion Criteria:

• Acute paralysis (quadriplegia, paraplegia)
• Penetrating trauma to the neck
• Patients with known vertebral disease (ankylosing spondylitis, rheumatoid arthritis, spinal stenosis, or previous cervical spine surgery)
• Pregnancy