Solated Upper Thoracic Chance Fracture with Neurological Deficit, Without Bone Injury, Case Report

Chance fracture is known as horizontal splitting of vertebral corpus and neural arc. Mostly seen mechanism is hyperflexion of vertebra [1,2,3,4]. Horizontal splitting includes vertebral corpus, intervertebral discs or both [2]. Mostly seen at thoracolumbar region [3]. Upper thoracic chance fracture is very rare [1]. Injury mechanism is usually flexion-distraction injury and usually seen as seat belt injury at the time of car crush [1,3,4]. In this case report, patient had spinal cord injury caused by traffic accident outside car. There were no bone injury detected at direct radiography, computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) but there was T1-T2 intervertebral disc horizontal splitting and interspinous and supraspinous ligament separation at the same level.