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Multiple Clay Shoveler’s Fractures of the Thoracic Spine

Typically, a clay shoveler’s fracture is a stress-type avulsion fracture involving the spinous processes of the lower cervical or upper thoracic vertebrae. Even though C7 and T1 are the most commonly involved spinal levels, these avulsion fractures can occur at any lower cervical or upper thoracic l...

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Autores principales: Hoong, Wilbur Teng Jun, Kaliya-Perumal, Arun-Kumar
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9498129/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36140592
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12092190
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author Hoong, Wilbur Teng Jun
Kaliya-Perumal, Arun-Kumar
author_facet Hoong, Wilbur Teng Jun
Kaliya-Perumal, Arun-Kumar
author_sort Hoong, Wilbur Teng Jun
collection PubMed
description Typically, a clay shoveler’s fracture is a stress-type avulsion fracture involving the spinous processes of the lower cervical or upper thoracic vertebrae. Even though C7 and T1 are the most commonly involved spinal levels, these avulsion fractures can occur at any lower cervical or upper thoracic level, either as solitary or multiple fractures. This fracture used to be common in workers who shovel heavy loads of clay for long periods, hence its name. It does not cause any structural, functional, or neurological impairments and is therefore considered a stable fracture. Management is mostly conservative, involving rest, analgesics, and activity modification for a period of 4–6 weeks. Here, we present a 35-year-old male who sustained a motor vehicle accident. Except for midline tenderness in the back, there were no other positive findings. Plain radiographs showed a T11 vertebral compression fracture and absent or deviated spinous process shadows for most of the upper thoracic vertebrae. Computed tomography (CT) imaging clearly revealed multiple spinous process fractures extending from T2 to T8 levels. Considering the stability of these fractures, the patient was managed conservatively with rest, bracing, and analgesics. The recovery was quick, and he was back to his full functional status by six weeks.
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spelling pubmed-94981292022-09-23 Multiple Clay Shoveler’s Fractures of the Thoracic Spine Hoong, Wilbur Teng Jun Kaliya-Perumal, Arun-Kumar Diagnostics (Basel) Interesting Images Typically, a clay shoveler’s fracture is a stress-type avulsion fracture involving the spinous processes of the lower cervical or upper thoracic vertebrae. Even though C7 and T1 are the most commonly involved spinal levels, these avulsion fractures can occur at any lower cervical or upper thoracic level, either as solitary or multiple fractures. This fracture used to be common in workers who shovel heavy loads of clay for long periods, hence its name. It does not cause any structural, functional, or neurological impairments and is therefore considered a stable fracture. Management is mostly conservative, involving rest, analgesics, and activity modification for a period of 4–6 weeks. Here, we present a 35-year-old male who sustained a motor vehicle accident. Except for midline tenderness in the back, there were no other positive findings. Plain radiographs showed a T11 vertebral compression fracture and absent or deviated spinous process shadows for most of the upper thoracic vertebrae. Computed tomography (CT) imaging clearly revealed multiple spinous process fractures extending from T2 to T8 levels. Considering the stability of these fractures, the patient was managed conservatively with rest, bracing, and analgesics. The recovery was quick, and he was back to his full functional status by six weeks. MDPI 2022-09-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9498129/ /pubmed/36140592 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12092190 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Interesting Images
Hoong, Wilbur Teng Jun
Kaliya-Perumal, Arun-Kumar
Multiple Clay Shoveler’s Fractures of the Thoracic Spine
title Multiple Clay Shoveler’s Fractures of the Thoracic Spine
title_full Multiple Clay Shoveler’s Fractures of the Thoracic Spine
title_fullStr Multiple Clay Shoveler’s Fractures of the Thoracic Spine
title_full_unstemmed Multiple Clay Shoveler’s Fractures of the Thoracic Spine
title_short Multiple Clay Shoveler’s Fractures of the Thoracic Spine
title_sort multiple clay shoveler’s fractures of the thoracic spine
topic Interesting Images
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9498129/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36140592
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12092190
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