BACKGROUND The true incidence of serious neuraxial complications such as epidural hematoma or abscess after postoperative epidural infusions is still uncertain, in part due to inconsistencies in multicenter data collection. METHODS Prospective data were collected over 16 yr from the authors' Acute Pain Service, which is based in a large tertiary teaching institution with a nonobstetric genera...

An 89-year-old woman admitted to the Emergency Care Department with reported back pain nine days earlier that started suddenly when sitting. This subsequently evolved into progressive paraparesis (Frankel D). An MRI of the lumbosacral spine revealed an extensive lumbar epidural hematoma (Figure). The patient underwent decompressive laminectomy of T12-L1. Spontaneous epidural hematoma is a rare ...

BACKGROUND The natural history of traumatic aneurysms of the middle meningeal artery (MMA) is not well known, but patients with these lesions are more likely to have delayed bleeds. In this paper, we described a series of patients with epidural hematoma who underwent angiotomography (CTA) for MMA vascular lesion diagnosis. METHODS Eleven patients admitted to our emergency unit with small acut...

The treatment of chronic back pain is a challenging problem. Facet joint infiltration is an established treatment for chronic low back pain caused by arthrosis of the lumbar facet joints. Due to the increasing number of patients with chronic low back pain, this therapy has become more frequent. We treated a 51-year-old male patient, who developed an epidural hematoma 2 months after infiltration...

The non-traumatic acute epidural/extradural hematoma is an entity rarely described in the literature. In general, it characterizes the young age, especially due to the relation of the dura mater with the internal side of the skull. In this article the authors present a case of pathological extradural hematoma, following a disseminated intravascular coagulation that appeared to a young woman suf...

RATIONALE Spontaneous spinal epidural hematoma (SSEH) is a relatively rare but potentially disabling disease, and the classical presentation of it includes an acute onset of severe, sometimes radiating back or neck pain, followed by signs and symptoms of rapidly evolving nerve root or spinal cord compression. PATIENT CONCERNS Here, we report a 26-year-old female patient presented with weaknes...

The case of a 43-year-old Taiwanese man who presented with spinal epidural hematoma following intravenous administration of recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rTPA) and heparin therapy for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is reported. Upper back pain and progressive neurological dysfunction ensued, secondary to spinal epidural hematoma with spinal cord compression. The patient did not r...

Cervical epidural steroid injection is frequently used in the conservative management of neck pain and cervical radiculopathy. Epidural cervical transforaminal injections are usually well-tolerated with mild side effects such as transient decreased sensory and motor function, or headache due to dural puncture. Although there are a few case reports about adverse effects of cervical epidural inje...

Copyright © 2017 Massachusetts Medical Society. Acute compression of the spinal cord is a devastating but treatable disorder. Diseases that cause acute spinal cord compression constitute a special category because they originate in the spinal column and narrow the spinal canal. This review addresses the disorders that account for most instances of acute spinal cord compression: trauma, tumor, e...