Computational AND Spinal Cord

OBJECTIVE: Anterior cervical corpectomy and fusion (ACCF), in which a ventral constriction is resected, can decompress myelopathy and is considered the optimal treatment for ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) up to now. However, its disadvantages are incomplete decompression, high surgery- and implant-related complication rates, and extremely surgical technique demanding. Our object was to introduce anterior controllable antedisplacement fusion (ACAF), a new surgical technique to treat OPLL, and compare it with ACCF...

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE: Despite increased interest in the topic of resilience in rehabilitation, there has been no psychometric investigation of the Flourishing Scale (FS) in a sample of adults with spinal cord injury (SCI). The present study examined the reliability, convergent validity, and factor structure of the FS. Research Method/Design: Data for this project were extracted from a larger study on happiness and quality of life after SCI. For this study, information was collected using a cross-sectional mail survey design of adults with SCI...

RATIONALE: Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is a common and serious disease and one of the most important differential diagnoses in the emergency department. PATIENT CONCERNS: A 39-year-old female patient with a 12 years' history of migraine, presented with a sudden headache combined with motor aphasia. Physical examination suggested probable positive neck resistance. SAH was confirmed by magnetic resonance imaging. In addition, spinal digital subtraction angiography and spinal vascular computed tomography angiography indicated spinal arteriovenous malformation (SAVM)...

Preoperative visualization of the Adamkiewicz artery - the vessel which is to a great extent responsible for supplying blood to the medullary cone - is an important step which must be taken before initiating restorative procedures in the aorta. We present a case of a 67-year-old patient who underwent an intravascular stent-graft implantation procedure, due to clinical signs of abdominal aortic aneurysm. Routine pre-operative computed tomography examination failed to demonstrate the Adamkiewicz artery. On the second day after the surgery, as a result of unexpected clinical deterioration, an magnetic resonance imaging examination of the lumbar spine was carried out...

OBJECTIVE: Ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) is a three-dimensional (3D) disease that causes cervical myelopathy. The conventional two-dimensional(2D) measurement of OPLL has limitations in estimating cord-compression and myelopathy. In this study, we attempted to use three-dimensional computed tomography(3D CT) and magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) to measure the 3D occupying ratio of OPLL and investigate its significance in assessment of spinal cord myelopathy...

OBJECTIVE: Cervical myelopathy is a common acquired cause of spinal cord dysfunction in elderly. It is postulated that hypoxic/ischemic environment secondary to chronic spinal cord compression plays an important role in the pathogenesis of myelopathy. This study aims to assess the altered blood flow to spinal cord in Cervical spondylotic myelopthy patients using Dual-Energy Computed Tomography. To our knowledge, this is the first study to utilize DECT in identifying comprised Anterior Spinal Artery blood flow in CSM patients...

Lung cancer patients often experience potentially life-threatening medical urgencies and emergencies, which may be a direct or indirect result of the underlying malignancy. This pictorial review addresses the most common thoracic, neurological and musculoskeletal medical emergencies in lung cancer patients, including superior vena cava syndrome, pulmonary embolism, spontaneous pneumothorax, cardiac tamponade, massive haemoptysis, central airway obstruction, oesophagorespiratory fistula, malignant spinal cord compression, carcinomatous meningitis, cerebral herniation and pathological fracture...

OBJECTIVES: To characterize the effect of fever after acute, traumatic spinal cord injury on injury site metabolism and patient outcome. DESIGN: Longitudinal cohort study. In 44 patients (London cohort), we determined the effect of fever on intrathecal injury site metabolism by analyzing 1,767 hours of intraspinal pressure and 759 hours of microdialysis data. We also determined the effect of fever burden, computed for the first 2 weeks in hospital, on neurologic outcome...

Cardiac-related spinal cord motion affects diffusion-weighted (DWI) signal. The goal of this study was to further quantify the specific detrimental effect of cord translational motion on the DWI signal in order to make better informed decisions about the cost-benefit of cardiac gating. We designed an MRI-compatible phantom mimicking the spinal cord translational motion. Cardiac-gated DWI data were acquired by varying the trigger delay and the b-values. Evaluation of the effect of motion on the DWI signal was done by computing the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) along (z-direction) and orthogonal (y- and x-directions) to the phantom...

BACKGROUND: Intensity-modulated radiotherapy is useful for cervical oesophageal carcinoma (CEC); however, increasing low-dose exposure to the lung may lead to radiation pneumonitis. Nevertheless, an irradiation technique that avoids the lungs has never been examined due to the high difficulty of dose optimization. In this study, we examined the efficacy of helical tomotherapy that can restrict beamlets passing virtual blocks during dose optimization computing (block plan) in reducing the lung dose...

Thoracic disc prolapses causing cord compression can be challenging. For compressive central disc protrusions, a posterior approach is not suitable due to an unacceptable level of cord manipulation. An anterolateral transthoracic approach provides direct access to the disc prolapse allowing for decompression without disturbing the spinal cord. In this video, we describe 2 cases of thoracic myelopathy from a compressive central thoracic disc prolapse. In both cases, informed consent was obtained. Despite similar radiological appearances of heavy calcification, intraoperatively significant differences can be encountered...

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the perioperative and short-term results in a cohort of patients treated during the last year at our institution with the stent-assisted balloon-induced intimal disruption and relamination in aortic dissection repair (STABILISE) technique for acute complicated aortic dissection. METHODS: Between June 2016 and June 2017, 10 patients (all male; mean age, 62.6 ± 7.4 years) received treatment for acute complicated aortic dissection with the STABILISE technique...

Spinal arachnoiditis (SA) is an extremely rare and delayed complication of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Little is known about its underlying pathogenesis and subsequent clinical course. A middle-aged patient presented with the worst headache of her life and a grade 3 SAH of the basal-cisterns and posterior fossa was identified on Computed Tomography scans (CT). Angiography revealed a ruptured dissecting aneurysm of the left vertebral artery (VA-V4), as well as an unruptured left Anterior Cerebral Artery (ACA-A1) aneurysm...

A neurological illness is t he disorder in human nervous system that can result in various diseases including the motor disabilities. Neurological disorders may affect the motor neurons, which are associated with skeletal muscles and control the body movement. Consequently, they introduce some diseases in the human e.g. cerebral palsy, spinal scoliosis, peripheral paralysis of arms/legs, hip joint dysplasia and various myopathies. Vojta therapy is considered a useful technique to treat the motor disabilities...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether gray matter pathology above the level of injury, alongside white matter changes, also contributes to sensorimotor impairments after spinal cord injury. METHODS: A 3T MRI protocol was acquired in 17 tetraplegic patients and 21 controls. A sagittal T2-weighted sequence was used to characterize lesion severity. At the C2-3 level, a high-resolution T2*-weighted sequence was used to assess cross-sectional areas of gray and white matter, including their subcompartments; a diffusion-weighted sequence was used to compute voxel-based diffusion indices...

Introduction: Primary spinal cord tumours can lead to severe neurological complications and even death. Pregnant women often complain of discomfort of the lower limbs, which is usually caused by sciatica. Here we present the case of a pregnant woman, who was initially considered to have sciatica, but was finally diagnosed with a primary intramedullary spinal cord tumour. Case presentation: A 28-year-old pregnant woman presented to our hospital with inexplicable numbness in her lower limbs...

Activity-dependent changes in the properties of the motor system underlie the necessary adjustments in its responsiveness on the basis of the environmental and developmental demands of the organism. Although plastic changes in the properties of the spinal cord have historically been neglected because of the archaic belief that the spinal cord is constituted by a hardwired network that simply relays information to muscles, plenty of evidence has been accumulated showing that synapses impinging on spinal motoneurons undergo short- and long-term plasticity...

Introduction: We present an unusual case of traumatic occult lateral mass fracture of the cervical spine with unilateral occlusion of the vertebral artery (VA), that was missed by plain X-ray and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), but identified by computed tomography (CT) after suspecting high-energy trauma as the underlying cause. Case presentation: A 67-year-old male was injured in a car accident and came to our institute on foot 4 days after injury with complaints of neck pain and numbness in the right hand...

The aim of the present study was to investigate the optimal strategy and dosimetric measurement of thoracic radiotherapy based on three-dimensional (3D) modeling of mediastinal lymph nodes (MLNs). A 3D model of MLNs was constructed from a Chinese Visible Human female dataset. Image registration and fusion between reconstructed MLNs and original chest computed tomography (CT) images was conducted in the Eclipse™ treatment planning system (TPS). There were three plans, including 3D conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT), intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT), which were designed based on 10 cases of simulated lung lesions (SLLs) and MLNs...

BACKGROUND: Advanced cervical spondylosis (CS) can cause structural damage to the spinal cord resulting in long-term neurological impairment including neck pain and motor weakness. We hypothesized long-term structural reorganization within the brain in patients with CS. OBJECTIVE: To explore the associations between cortical thickness, subcortical volumes, neurological symptoms, and pain severity in CS patients with or without myelopathy and healthy controls (HCs)...