No abstract available.
Spinal Cord Diseases* ; Spinal Cord*

Spontaneous herniation of the spinal cord is a rare disease entity in which spinal cord substance is herniated through a previously uninjured and/or untouched dura. It is a cause of myelopathy that is treatable but difficult to diagnose. We report the CT and MR findings of a case of spontaneous thoracic spinal cord herniation manifesting as ventrolateral protrusion of thoracic spinal cord through a dural defect.
Rare Diseases ; Spinal Cord Diseases ; Spinal Cord*

No abstract available.
Spinal Cord Diseases*

No abstract available.
Myelitis* ; Spinal Cord Diseases*

A fracture of the posterior arch of the atlas is a rare complication of Halifax clamp fixation for atlantoaxial fusion. To the best of our knowledge, there is only one case reported reporting the English literature. Revision for this condition is challenging because of the difficulty in the surgical approach, internal fixation, and fusion. We report a case of bilateral fractures and nonunion of the posterior arch of the atlas and atlantoaxial nonunion after an atlantoaxial fusion procedure using Halifax clamp fixation, which resulted in persistent atlantoaxial instability and progressive myelopathy. Segmental screw fixation was performed using C1 lateral mass screws and C2 subarticular screws, along with intraarticular and extraarticular atlantoaxial inter-facet fusion.
Spinal Cord Diseases

No abstract available.
Spinal Cord Vascular Diseases*

Background & Objectives: Multiple sclerosis (MS), neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and acute transverse myelitis (ATM) are common diseases in neurology; however their corresponding cervical spinal cord involvements are still ambiguous. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the utility of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and diffusion tensor tractography (DTT) in identifying the injury in cervical spinal cord. Methods: Nine patients and nine healthy volunteers were enrolled in this study. Conventional sequences and DTI scan were performed on each participant. Results: The average fractional anisotrophy (FA) values of the cervical cord in patients with acute cerebral type MS, acute or stationary cerebrospinal type MS, acute NMO, or acute ATM were all significantly decreased relative to the control group (p <0.05). As to the cerebrospinal type MS, the changes in acute-stage patients were more apparent (p <0.05). The average FA value of the cervical cord in acute NMO was decreased more extensively, involving the normal-appearing spinal cord (p <0.05). In patients with MS or NMO, The lesions showed significantly hypointense on FA images and directionally encoded color (DEC) images, nevertheless the pathological areas on DTI images were no significantly different from those on routine sequences. On DTT, the fiber tracts in the lesion-involved regions were all sparser than that in control regions, nevertheless interruption or impairment of fiber tracts could only be noted in NMO patients. Bilateral differences of average FA values in the cervical cord was noted in one case with ATM and another case with MS (p <0.05), and the decrease of FA values was significant in the main side of clinical presentations. Conclusion: DTI and DTT may be a sensitive measure for early cervical injury in MS, NMO and ATM
Spinal Cord Diseases

Chronic progressive radiation myelopathy(CPRM) is a rare but serious complication of radiation therapy. It's exact cause is unknown and the diagnosis is usually made based on the exclusion of other causes of myelopathy. Magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) with gadolinium- diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid(DTPA) enhancement seems to be useful for the diagnosis of CPRM. There is no known effective treatment and the complication is irreversible. We report a case of CPRM after radiation therapy for subglottic cancer which was not respond to high-dose steroid therapy with review of literature.
Diagnosis ; Spinal Cord Diseases*

Idiopathic spinal cord herniation is a rare but potentially treatable cause of thoracic myelopathy. The rarity and variable clinical presentation often results in missed diagnosis and delay in treatment. Posterior midline approach with laminectomy has been the most common approach performed for spinal cord herniation in cases described in the literature. A posterior approach is limited by the danger of retracting the spinal cord and difficulty visualizing the dural defect. Considering the anterior location of the dural defect, a posterolateral allows for a more ventral view without spinal cord manipulation. We report a rare case of idiopathic spinal cord herniation which was managed by unilateral paramedian transpedicular approach with an excellent clinical outcome.
Laminectomy ; Spinal Cord ; Spinal Cord Diseases

No abstract available.
Neuralgia ; Spinal Cord Compression ; Spinal Cord Diseases