Limb-body wall complex, also known as the short umbilical cord syndrome or the body stalk anomaly, is a poorly defined, sporadic group of congenital anomaly characterized by a collection of protean fetal malformation, deformation and disruption. Accurate diagnosis is often difficult because of its variable presentation pattern and the absence of exactly same case. Ultrasonographic detection of abdominoschisis, scoliosis, abnormalities of the lower extremities, a single umbilical artery and a short umbilical cord is important for the prenatal diagnosis. This complex should be distinguished from other body wall defects including omphalocele and gastroschisis since the prognosis for limb-body wall complex is uniformly poor. We experienced a case of limb-body wall complex in a fetus of intrauterine pregnancy at 15 weeks who was terminated because of ultrasonographic demonstration of a large abdominal defect with eventration of abdominal organs, short umbilical cord and kyphoscoliosis. Thus, we report a case with brief review of the literatures.
Diagnosis ; Fetus ; Gastroschisis ; Hernia, Umbilical ; Lower Extremity ; Pregnancy ; Prenatal Diagnosis ; Prognosis ; Scoliosis ; Single Umbilical Artery ; Ultrasonography, Prenatal* ; Umbilical Cord

The authors report our recent experience with 4 cases of syringomyelia that had developed secondary to tuberculous meningitis. Three cases of syringomyelia were treated by syringoperitoneal shunt and 1 case, by syringosubarachnoid shunt. Postoperatively, upper and lower extremity pain that had persisted in all the patients was relieved in all the patients, but improvement in limb sensation was noted in only 1 case. Improvement in limb motor power was noted in 3 cases. The clinical presentation, surgical consideration, and pathogenesis of syringomyelia is discussed together with a review of the literature.
Extremities ; Humans ; Lower Extremity ; Sensation ; Syringomyelia* ; Tuberculosis, Meningeal*

Eighty-four patients whose cervical lesions not associated with any trauma or tumor were operated for anterior cervical interbody fusion. The patients were separated into two groups, one group operated with a cervical plate and the other group, without the cervical plate. The mean follow-up duration in anterior cervical interbody fusion with cervical plate cases was 16 months(from 6 months to 30 months), without cervical plate 35 months(from 6 months to 84 months). Retrospective analysis of the two groups were done in order to compare the incidence of postoperative complications, clinical outcome, and radiological changes. The most notable postoperative complications of the group operated without the cervical plate were migration of the bone graft(3.3%) and angulation(3.3%), whereas of the group operated with the cervical plate were screw loosening(4.2%) and infection of the operative wound(4.2%). Comparative analysis of the postoperative clinical outcome and changes in radiological measurement of the intervertebral heights and angles showed no statistically significant difference between the two groups. The results of this study suggest that whether or not the cervical plate should be used for anterior cervical interbody fusions requires a decision made carefully and meticulously by the operator, so that the possibility of any postoperative complications can be minimized.
Follow-Up Studies* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Postoperative Complications ; Retrospective Studies

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical utility of rapid detection of Down syndrome and Edward syndrome by Interphase Fluorescence in Situ Hybridization (FISH) analysis METHODS: A retrospective study in 309 cases of amniotic fluid samples, analysed by interphase FISH with DNA probes specific to chromosome 18 and 21, was performed. All FISH results were compared with conventional cytogenetic karyotypings. RESULTS: The results were considered as informative and they were obtained within 48 hrs. A case of Down syndrome and a case of Edward syndrome were diagnosed by FISH and confirmed by subsequent cytogenetic analysis. In 12 cases with normal FISH results, the cytogenetic analysis showed a case of partial trisomy 22, three cases of sex chromosomal aneuploidy, two cases of mosaicism, two cases of microdeletion, and four cases of structural rearrangement. CONCLUSION: FISH is a rapid and effective diagnostic method, which can be used as an adjunctive test to cytogenetic analysis, for prenatal identification of chromosome aneuploidies. For the more genome- wide screening with variety of probes, the technique of FISH is both expensive and labor-intensive.