The spine

Giant Chordoma of the Thoracolumbar Spine

Chordomas are rare tumors from primitive notochord. They are usually located at sacrococcygeal region when it affects the spine. We present a case of giant chordoma in the thoracolumbar spine in Peru. A 43-year-old woman came to the hospital in Huanuco due to back pain and sensorymotor alterations in the lower limbs. Imaging confirmed an unresectable tumor involving the spine. Two years later, ...

The Spine Which Was No Spine

Let Tn be the Teichmüller space of flat metrics on the n-dimensional torus T and identify SLn Z with the corresponding mapping class group. We prove that the subset Y consisting of those points at which the systoles generate π1(T) is, for n ≥ 5, not contractible. In particular, Y is not a SLn Z-equivariant deformation retract of Tn. For n ≥ 2 let Tn be the Teichmüller space of flat metrics with...

Hydatid Disease of the Cervical Spine Mimicking Traumatic Burst Fracture

Background & Importance: Hydatid disease of the spine is rare but constitutes approximately 50% of bone involvement cases in human hydatidosis. It is a severe condition associated with a high rate of morbidity, disability and mortality. Case Presentation: In the present paper, we report an intriguing case of cervical spinal hydatid disease mimicking traumatic burst fracture. Con...

The Spine Journal

Morphological Diversity: Taking the Spine out of Three-Spine Stickleback

A gene already known to play a crucial developmental role in chick and mouse embryos has been fingered as a candidate for naturally occurring variation in three-spine stickleback anatomy.