Spinal stenosis is a term that means narrowing of the spinal canal or the nerve root foramina. It is thus divided into central or lateral stenosis. Central stenosis produces compression of the thecal sac: soft tissue (ligamentum flavum and disc) may contribute as much as 40% to this compression. It is more common in males because their spinal canal is smaller at the L3-L5 level. Lateral stenosi...

We report a case of unsuccessful removal of an epidural catheter in a postpartum patient following a labour epidural analgesia, which ultimately required surgical intervention and fenestration ligamentum flavum to remove the epidural catheter. A 26 year old, requested an epidural analgesia for her labour pain. The epidural catheter was inserted under aseptic technique, and she was comfortable t...

OBJECTIVE To investigate clinical-radiological features of cervical myelopathy due to degenerative spondylolisthesis (DSL). METHODS A total of 448 patients were operated for cervical myelopathy at Nishitaga National Hospital between 2000 and 2003. Of these patients, DSL at the symptomatic disc level was observed in 22 (4.9%) patients. Clinical features were investigated by medical records, an...

STUDY DESIGN Retrospective study. PURPOSE The aim of the present study is to analyze the prevalence and distribution of cervical and thoracic compressive lesions of the spinal cord in lumbar degenerative disease, using whole-spine postmyelographic computed tomography. OVERVIEW OF LITERATURE Of the various complications resulting from spinal surgery, unexpected neurological deterioration is ...

BACKGROUND Incorrect placement of epidural catheters causes medical complications. We used linear discriminant analysis (LDA) to develop an intelligent recognition system (i-RS) in order to guide epidural placement and reduce physician error. METHODS We analysed real-time dual-wavelength fibreoptic data recorded from the end of an epidural needle in a live porcine model. Two categories of tis...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES This report describes a method for producing anatomically detailed, low-cost ultrasound phantoms of the spine with 3-dimensional printing. An implementation that involves representing a portion of the lumbar spine and the ligamentum flavum with 2 different printing materials and the surrounding soft tissues with agar gel is presented. METHODS A computed tomography im...