Seat belts with air bags reduce risk of spine fractures in car crashes

Wisconsin , United States, January 26: As per researchers, the probability of suffering a spine fracture reduces substantially, if seat belts combined with air bags are used.

The latest research study was led by Marjorie Wang, MD, from the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and includes statistics from 20,000 crashes.

The research investigators said, “Use of both seat belt and air bag was associated with decreased odds of sustaining a spine fracture, specifically severe fractures or cervical and thoracic fractures.”

Charles Tator, MD, from Toronto Western Hospital and the University of Toronto in Ontario believes that Wang and his colleagues have done a commendable job, wherein they have served the community in a big way.

For the study purposes, statistics of accident victims 16 years of age and above treated in Wisconsin hospitals after car or truck crashes were studied. The researchers took the help of Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System, which has all the data pertaining to police reports of all car and truck crashes associated with hospital records.

It was discovered that only 14 percent of drivers and front-seat occupants who met with an accident were cushioned by a combination of seat belt and air bags.

In an interview with Medscape Neurology & Neurosurgery, Dr. Tator was quoted as saying, “It’s very shocking. It shows that there is a lot of work to be done to encourage public use of safety measures.”

It was also found that 12.5 percent people who met with car crashes suffered spine fractures. But the risk of a spine fracture went down with the use of both seat belt and air bags, and not just with one of these.

According to the researchers, “Most fractures were cervical or lumbosacral and eight percent with a cervical spine fracture also had a thoracic or lumbosacral fracture.”

Data reveals that in the year 2007, more than six million motor-vehicle crashes occurred in the United States alone. Dr. Wang revealed, “Motor-vehicle accidents are the leading cause of spinal cord injury in the United States for people age 65 and younger, and spine fractures are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality.”

The latest study which has been funded by an unrestricted research grant from EBI Medical and Abbott Spine will appear in the February issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine.