S. Xu, S. Roys, J. Racz, D. Shi, J. Zhuo, R. Gullapalli, and G. Fiskum Core for Translational Research in Imaging @ Maryland (C-TRIM), University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States, Anesthesiology and the Center for Shock Trauma and Anesthesiology Researc...

Percutaneous epidural neuroplasty may lead to complications such as hematoma, infection, epidural abscess, meningitis, hypotension, respiratory depression, urinary and fecal dysfunction, sexual dysfunction and paresthesia. Other technical complications may include shearing or tearing, misplacement, blockage and migration of the catheter. We report a case of a 41-year-old female patient, who und...

I wish to offer an alternative theory for the temporary paraplegia referenced in the letter to the editor rather than that of air entrapment. (Dalmau-Carola J. An old complication of a new technique: Pneumorrhachis from caudal epidural pulsed radiofrequency. Pain Physician: November/December 2014; 17:E783-E806). A 70-year-old woman with chronic lower back pain radiating to the left lower extrem...

Ildiko Racz,1* Xavier Nadal,3* Judith Alferink,1,2* Josep E. Baños,3 Jennifer Rehnelt,1 Miquel Martín,3 Belén Pintado,4 Alfonso Gutierrez-Adan,4 Elena Sanguino,5 Jorge Manzanares,5 Andreas Zimmer,1 and Rafael Maldonado3 1Institute of Molecular Psychiatry and 2Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, 53105 Bonn, Germany, 3Laboratori de Neurofarmacologia, Facultat de Ciències de la Salut i d...

BACKGROUND Percutaneous epidural neuroplasty with a Racz catheter is widely used to treat radicular pain caused by spinal stenosis or a herniated intervertebral disc. The breakage or shearing of an epidural catheter, particularly a percutaneous epidural neuroplasty catheter, is reported as a rare complication. There has been a controversy over whether surgical removal of a shorn epidural cathet...

It is well known that an n × n Wishart matrix with d degrees of freedom is close to the appropriately centered and scaled Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble (GOE) if d is large enough. Recent work of Bubeck, Ding, Eldan, and Racz, and independently Jiang and Li, shows that the transition happens when d = Θ(n). Here we consider this critical window and explicitly compute the total variation distance b...

Recently, percutaneous epidural neuroplasty has become widely used to treat radicular pain caused by spinal stenosis or a herniated intervertebral disc. A 19-year-old female patient suffering from left radicular pain caused by an L4-L5 intervertebral disc herniation underwent percutaneous epidural neuroplasty of the left L5 nerve root using a Racz catheter. After the procedure, the patient comp...