ABSTRACT
The annual incidence of spinal cord injury (SCI) is estimated to be approximately 40 cases per million population.1 Chiu et al. recently reviewed the literature on spinal cord injury and compared epidemiologic data from low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) and HICs and brought to light several systematic differences that may aid us in determining what changes we can make to improve the quality of spine care in the third world.2 First, the mortality rate with SCI in LMICs was twice that in the majority of HICs. This is likely due to the high cost of rehabilitative care and resources needed to maintain health in cord-injured patients that are simply not available in LMICs. The most common ertiology of SCI in the LMICs is falls, while motor vehicle accidents are the predominant cause of SCI in developed nations. SCI most commonly affects males between the ages of 30 and 50 universally, regardless of national resources.
