Acute neck sprain after road traffic accident: a long-term clinical and radiological review.

A retrospective review of 21 patients between 10 and 19 years after a soft tissue injury to the cervical spine was undertaken. The clinical data showed a persistence of symptoms in 18 (86 per cent) of patients without any deterioration in the clinical signs. The radiological assessment did not show any evidence of injury leading to, or correlating with, the development or progression of degenerative changes in the cervical spine.