Journal of clinical neuroscience : official journal of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia
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Case Reports
Intradural extramedullary arachnoid cyst of the thoracic spine associated with cord compression.
In this report, a 55-year-old Caucasian women with an arachnoid cyst of the thoracic spine is presented. This cyst remained undiagnosed because of the nonspecific nature of her symptoms over approximately three months. ⋯ Surgery was successful with respect to in-toto removal of the intradural, extramedullary cyst, reversal of cord compression and symptoms. Histological diagnosis was of an arachnoid cyst.
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Comparative Study
Comparative neuroprotective effect of sodium channel blockers after experimental spinal cord injury.
Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in loss of function below the lesion. Secondary injury following the primary impact includes a number of biochemical and cellular alterations leading to tissue necrosis and cell death. Influx of Na(+) ions into cells has been postulated to be a key early event in the pathogenesis of secondary traumatic and ischemic central nervous system injury. ⋯ Although all the treatment groups revealed significantly lower MDA levels and spinal cord edema than the trauma group (p<0.05), the riluzole and mexiletine treatment groups were better than the phenytoin treatment group. In the chronic stage, riluzole and mexiletine treatment achieved better results for neurobehavioral and histopathological recovery than phenytoin treatment. In conclusion, all the tested Na(+) blockers had a neuroprotective effect after SCI; riluzole and mexiletine were superior to phenytoin.