Editorial Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury in Nepal

Spinal cord injury is devastating injury, which has serious impact not only to the individual but also to family members, society and the nations as a whole because the available treatment options are expensive, prolong, resource consuming and do not always fulfill the expectation of patient and family members. Worldwide incidence of spinal cord injury has been reported up to 236-1009/million/year.1 The incidence, etiology and gender distribution varies significantly in different geographical areas of the world. In Asia, incidence of spinal cord injury is 12.06- 61.6/million/year.2 Incidence of spinal cord injury has not been reported in Nepal. However, two studies from eastern Nepal have reported 382 spinal injuries (149 cervical in between 2001 to 2004 and 233 spinal cord injury in between 1997 to 2001).3,4 Over last few years, numbers of spinal cord injury patients are increasing in Nepal. Major etiology of spinal injury in Nepal is related with fall related injury unlike in western countries where Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) tops the list. With the increasing number of road traffic accidents, MVA has been projected as major etiology of spinal cord injury in Nepal and other developing countries.5 MVA contributes 59.5 % of spinal cord injury in other Asian countries.2 Gender wise, males are predominantly involved and most of them are in productive age group with range 26 to 56 yrs.2 Injury prevention and emergency management is another challenge for Nepal to prevent spinal cord injury. Some of the injuries were preventable wit