A Rare Cause of Back Pain: Spontaneous Spinal Epidural Hematomas

Spontaneous spinal epidural hematoma (SSEH) is a very rare clinical condition, which requires urgent surgery. It may result, if diagnosis and treatment are delayed, in a permanent neurological deficit or even in death. In this article, we present three cases with SSEH, a 27 year-old male patient with a severe back pain following heavy lifting, and an 18 year-old male patient with complaints of acute onset pain on cervico-thoracic region and acute neurologic deficits in lower extremities, and a 5 year-old hemophiliac boy who had some complaints such as back and neck pain and torticollis who were admitted to our clinic. Physicians should consider diagnosis of SSEH, especially when a patient presents with sudden-onset back or neck pain with or without symptoms or signs of spinal cord compression and it should also be kept in mind that SSEH can manifest itself as an unusual presentation such as torticollis.