European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society
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We present the occurrence and management of mediastinal migration of the distal aspect of a posterior occipito-thoracic screw-rod construct. No similar occurrence was found in the literature. This event occurred following an emergency tracheotomy (requiring neck hyperextension) in a patient with severe rheumatoid arthritis, who had previously undergone decompression and an Occiput-T2 instrumented fusion for cranio-cervical and sub-axial cervical spine instability. ⋯ Removal of the instrumentation, decompression (T2 corpectomy) and construct revision down to T10 was safely performed from a posterior approach. Severe osteoporosis, some pre-existing screw loosening and hyperextension of the neck were the predisposing factors of this near catastrophic event. By staying directly posterior to the rod and following the fibrous tract already created, the instrumentation was safely removed from the mediastinum.
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With an official life time of over 5 years, Spine Tango can meanwhile be considered the first international spine registry. In this paper we present an overview of frequency statistics of Spine Tango for demonstrating the genesis of questionnaire development and the constantly increasing activity in the registry. Results from two exemplar studies serve for showing concepts of data analysis applied to a spine registry. ⋯ Current limitations of Spine Tango include the low number and short duration of follow-ups and the lack of sufficiently detailed patient data on subgroup levels. Although the number of participants is steadily growing, no country is yet represented with a sufficient number of hospitals. Nevertheless, the benefits of the project for the whole spine community become increasingly visible.
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Case Reports
Discrepancies of MRI findings between recumbent and upright positions in atlantoaxial lesion. Report of two cases.
Two cases of atlantoaxial (A-A) instability that showed different MRI findings between supine and upright positions are presented. The upright MRI represented the findings corresponding to their symptoms. In A-A lesions, conventional MR images taken in the supine position do not always explain the pathophysiological consequences. The MR images taken in the upright position disclose the actual spinal pathophysiology with gravitational effects.
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Walking is impaired in Pregnancy-related Pelvic girdle Pain (PPP). Walking velocity is reduced, and in postpartum PPP relative phase between horizontal pelvis and thorax rotations was found to be lower at higher velocities, and rotational amplitudes tended to be larger. While attempting to confirm these findings for PPP during pregnancy, we wanted to identify underlying mechanisms. ⋯ The earlier results on postpartum PPP were confirmed for PPP during pregnancy. Spinal rotations remained unaffected, while at higher velocities the peak of thorax rotations occurred earlier in the stride cycle. The latter change may serve to avoid excessive spine rotations caused by the larger segmental rotations.
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Symptomatic spinal epidural lipomatosis (SEL) is very rare and frequently associated to chronic exogenous steroid use, obesity and Cushing syndrome. The idiopathic cases where no identifiable association with SEL are found constitute only 17% of all cases. The usual clinical manifestations of this entity consist of dorsal or lumbar pain with paresthesias and weakness in lower limbs, but acute symptoms of myelopathy are exceptional. ⋯ Urgent surgical decompression was performed in order to relieve the symptoms. Slow but progressive improvement was assessed after surgery. We consider this case to be exceptional due to the needing to perform an urgent decompressive laminectomy to treat a rapidly progressive myelopathy caused by idiopathic SEL.