Remote Lesions of Synchronous Sacral and Cervical Dural Arteriovenous Fistulas: A Case Report.

BACKGROUND: Spinal dural arteriovenous fistula (DAVF) is a rare disease, and multiple concurrent lesions are extremely rare. Such multiple spinal DAVFs have similar outflow routes at neighboring levels. However, there have been no reported cases of remote lesions of multiple spinal DAVFs. The authors herein report a case of double synchronous cervical and sacral DAVFs.

CASE DESCRIPTION: A 56-year-old man with no previous history of disease presented with progressive myelopathy, and spinal magnetic resonance imaging showed extensive edema of the spinal cord from the conus to T7. The initial angiography incidentally revealed a C1 DAVF, but the sacral DAVF was not diagnosed. The C1 DAVF was treated surgically, because of the risk of subarachnoid hemorrhage. A second angiography was performed 2 months after the first surgery because of high clinical suspicion, and the sacral DAVF was diagnosed at that time. The sacral DAVF was treated surgically, and the symptoms gradually resolved within 6 months after surgery.

CONCLUSIONS: Spinal DAVF is a rare disease, but clinicians should be aware of the possibility of the concurrence of multiple spinal fistulas located at different levels in the same patient.