NEXUS C-Spine Criteria

Hoffman JR, Mower WR, Wolfson AB, Todd KH, Zucker MI. Validity of a set of clinical criteria to rule out injury to the cervical spine in patients with blunt trauma (NEXUS). Absence of all five criteria — midline tenderness, focal deficit, altered alertness, intoxication, distracting injury — had 99.6% sensitivity for clinically significant cervical spine injury.

Stiell IG, Clement CM, McKnight RD, et al. The Canadian C-Spine Rule versus the NEXUS low-risk criteria in patients with trauma. The Canadian C-Spine Rule outperformed NEXUS on sensitivity (99.4% vs 90.7%) in alert, stable patients.