On the diagnosis and mechanism of transverse lumbar vertebrae fractures

Among the numerous and varied forms of traumatic injuries of the spine, fractures — separations of the transverse processes of the lumbar vertebrae — are relatively rare. In the pre-X-ray time, such injuries were almost never diagnosed, and even now they are not always recognized in a timely manner. Such patients often walk for a long time with their suffering under the diagnosis: lumbodynia, distortion, etc. Due to the fact that the objective phenomena in this case may be insignificant, constant complaints and appeals of such patients to doctors are very often interpreted as aggravation or simulation, until the radiography, and sometimes repeated, does not reveal a fracture of one or several transverse processes of the lumbar vertebrae.