Traumatic Atlantooccipital Dislocation: Two Cases with Survival

Survival following traumatic atlantooccipital (AO) dislocation is rare. This report describes one case of anterior AO dislo-cation and a second case of posterior AO dislocation, both with long-term survival. Reliable findings for diagnosing AO dislocation with plain radiographs, anteroposterior polytomog-raphy, and CT are discussed. A simple rapid CT technique using axial sections to confirm AO dislocation is presented. Traumatic atlantooccipital (AO) dislocation is a common fatal injury in motor vehicle accidents [1-3]. Long-term survival has only been reported in 12 cases. During a recent 7-month period we encountered two cases of AO dislocation, one anterior and one posterior. Both patients survived, one with neurologic impairments and the other with no neurologic deficit. Our discussion includes techniques described previ-ously for making this diagnosis as well as a CT technique for substantiating the diagnosis