Journal de la colonne vertébrale

Spinal Cord Venous Infarction Presumed to be Caused by a Lumbar Vertebral Body Malformation after Vertebral Complession Fracture

Abstract

Shinji Tanishima, Satoru Fukata, Hiroyuki Ishi, Yasuo Morio, Toshiyuki Dokai and Akihiko Nishihara

We report a case of a 81-year-old woman with a subacute bilateral legs palsy due to venous congestion of the spinal cord caused by an arteriovenous fistula in the first lumbar vertebra which fractured previously.

We diagnosed her spinal infarction only by MRI. She recovered from leg palsy at first. So we waited and saw her symptom. But after that leg palsy repeated with short interval and gradually her palsy was getting worse and became completed palsy. We performed selective spinal angiography and found out arteriovenous fistula in first lumbar vertebra fractured previously.

We estimated that vertebral fracture might make arteriovenous fistula in vertebral body and this fistula caused venous congestion spinal cord.

Spinal cord venous infarctions due to venous congestion with lumbar vertebral body malformation is a very rare. Therefore we delayed to diagnose and this delay caused to permanent neurological deficits.