Traumatic spinal cord injury in the north-east Tanzania – describing incidence, etiology and clinical outcomes retrospectively

ABSTRACTBackground: Causes, magnitude and consequences of traumatic spinal cord injury depend largely on geography, infrastructure, socioeconomic and cultural activities of a given region. There is a scarcity of literature on profile of traumatic spinal cord injury to inform prevention and rehabilitation of this health condition in African rural settings, particularly Tanzania.Objective: To describe the incidence, etiology and clinical outcomes of traumatic spinal cord injury and issues related to retrospective study in underdeveloped setting.Methods: Records for patients with traumatic spinal cord injury for five consecutive years (2010–2014) were obtained retrospectively from the admission wards and health records archives of the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center. Sociodemographic, cause, complications and patients’ condition on discharge were recorded and analyzed descriptively.Results: The admission books in the wards registered 288 new traumatic spinal cord injury cases from January 2010 to Decemb...