• Kamil W Nowicki, Jenna R Gale, Vikas Agarwal, and Edward A Monaco.
• Department of Neurosurgery, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Electronic address: nowickik@upmc.edu.
• World Neurosurg. 2020 Nov 1; 143: 434-439.

BackgroundCervical radiculopathy and cervicalgia are commonly managed with spinal epidural steroid injections in the outpatient setting. Although cervical epidural injections are routinely performed, there is potential for significant complications if proper technique and safety measures are not followed. Spinal cord infarction and stroke following transforaminal injection have been described in the literature, whereas interlaminar injections have been associated with both epidural hematomas and direct cord injury.Case DescriptionHere we describe a case of pneumomyelia after cervical interlaminar epidural steroid injection resulting in acute quadriparesis. The patient's symptoms were caused by an inadvertent puncture of the cervical cord and injection of air present in the needle or syringe via an interlaminar approach. The initial computed tomography imaging showed a slit-like lesion at C7-T2 with density consistent with air that migrated rostrally on a follow-up scan.ConclusionsEpidural steroid injections are often the treatment of choice in management of neck pain and cervical radiculopathy. Devastating complications can ensue if proper safety measures and technique are not used during the procedure regardless of the approach used.Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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