The relationship between spinal anesthesia and hearing loss is not well understood, but is thought to be due to leakages of cerebrospinal fluid, which may or may not induce postural puncture headache. Previous studies have reported no risk of hearing loss in patients under 40 or the obstetric population. We present a case of a young woman who experienced severe sudden unilateral hearing loss af...

Lumbar puncture is a medical technique that physicians must learn and is, therefore, considered a basic medical procedure. The lumbar puncture simulators Lumbar-Kun (Lumbar Puncture Simulator) and Lumbar-Kun II (Lumbar Puncture Simulator II) (Kyoto Kagaku, Kyoto, Japan) are teaching aids designed for practicing spinal insertions. We describe and results of a lumbar puncture clerkship course, pr...

PURPOSE Postdural puncture headache (PDPH) is an iatrogenic complication of neuraxial blockade. We systematically reviewed the literature on parturients to determine the frequency, onset, and duration of PDPH. METHODS Citations on PDPH in the obstetrical population were identified by computerized searches, citation review, and hand searches of abstracts and conference proceedings. Citations w...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Recently, the performance of C1-2 punctures for cervical myelography was challenged in a medicolegal proceeding as being below the standard of care. We sought to examine current neuroradiologic practices and opinions on the technique. MATERIALS AND METHODS An 11-question survey was sent to 120 program directors of neuroradiology via e-mail links regarding cervical myelo...

Spinal hematoma is an infrequently described complication of spinal anaesthesia. It has been described in the literature in patients with a deranged coagulation profile in the form of systemic diseases (e.g. chronic renal failure, liver failure) or anticoagulant therapy. Whatever the reason, it will have disastrous consequences in the form of permanent paraplegia or persistent neurological defi...

Simultaneous intracranial and spinal subdural hematomas are extremely rare. In most cases, they are attributed to major or minor trauma and iatrogenic causes, such as those resulting from spinal puncture. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there has been only two reports of spontaneous concomitant intracranial and spinal subdural hematomas in a patient receiving anticoagulant therapy who ha...

Spinal epidural hematoma, a potentially devastating problem, requires rapid diagnosis and urgent surgical intervention. Two types of spinal epidural hematoma have been described in the literature: traumatic and nontraumatic.1 Traumatic spinal epidural hematoma has been attributed to spine surgery,2 epidural catheter placement,3 lumbar puncture,4 and chiropractic manipulation.5 Nontraumatic, or ...

Functional brain imaging has been a standard tool in the basic and clinical neurosciences for at least 2 decades, and structural brain imaging can claim an even longer track record of successful use for diagnosis of neurodegenerative disease. It is instructive to recall the ways in which brain imaging has been used to date, and this exercise will clarify why the contribution by McMillan et al.(...

Meningitis may be difficult to diagnose. If it is suspected clinically and a first lumbar puncture is normal, a second cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) sample may be required within a few hours to confirm the diagnosis. A child is presented in whom CSF was normal 14 hours after the onset of illness, but who 14 hours later showed the characteristic changes of purulent meningitis. This case differs from...

OBJECTIVE To compare the frequency and severity of post dural puncture headache in obstetric patients using 25G Quincke, 27G Quincke and 27G Whitacre spinal needles. DESIGN Comparative, randomized, double-blind, interventional study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY Liaquat University Hospital Hyderabad from October 2005 to December 2006. PATIENTS AND METHODS 480 ASA I-II full term pregnant wo...