Fracture-dislocation of the lumbosacral spine: case report and review of the literature

Abstract

This report describes an extensively comminuted fracture of the sacrum and the L-5 vertebral body with complete anterior dislocation of the lumbar spine on the sacrum that occurred in a 19-year-old man ejected from a motor vehicle. Lumbosacral dissociation was characterized by computed tomography with three-dimensional and multiplanar reconstruction, and definitively managed by posterior instrumentation using locking hook spinal rods attached to the pelvis with hockey stick attachments by the Galveston technique. Implications of this case and a review of the literature are presented.