Transitional vertebra

Last revised by Henry Knipe on 13 Jan 2024

A transitional vertebra is one that has indeterminate characteristics and features of vertebrae from adjacent vertebral segments. They occur at the junction between spinal morphological segments:

Their importance stems both because the altered anatomy can be symptomatic (e.g. cervical rib causing thoracic outlet syndrome) or because they can lead to confusion when describing findings and thus lead to an incorrect level operation.

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