Complete Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury: Current Insights Regarding Timing of Surgery and Level of Injury.

In complete tSCI, the level of injury as well as surgical timing affect neurological recovery. There appears to be a beneficial effect of early surgical decompression in patients with complete cervical tSCI, more so than for thoracic and thoracolumbar tSCI. Frequently, the effect of surgical intervention is evaluated by an improvement in ASIA grade, but it is unclear whether this scale is sensitive enough to evaluate meaningful effectiveness of the intervention and desired outcome for patients with tSCI.