Prevalence of Cervical Canal Stenosis in Patients with Femoral Fracture: A Retrospective Single-Center Study

Introduction: Cervical spine surgery reduces falls and subsequent femoral fractures. Nonetheless, current evidence on the prevalence of cervical cord compression (CCC) and increased signal intensity (ISI) in patients with femoral fractures is limited. We aimed to determine the prevalence of CCC and ISI and characterize the physical status and imaging findings using cervical spine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and brain computed tomography (CT) in patients with femoral fractures. Results: Among the 173 patients, 83 (48.0%) had CCC, 29 (16.8%) had ISI, and 68 (39.3%) had abnormal brain CT findings. There was no ISI in patients in the non-CCC group. The patients' average age in the CCC group was significantly higher than that in the non-CCC group. There was no significant difference in the proportion of myelopathic sign and abnormal brain CT findings between the CCC and non-CCC groups or between the ISI and non-ISI groups. Bilateral hand grip strength was significantly negatively correlated with the stenosis rate (right, p=0.047; left, p=0.0018). Conclusions: In conclusion, our study showed that patients with femoral fractures had a high frequency of cervical canal stenosis and intracranial lesions using cervical spine MRI and brain CT.