A 68-year-old woman with progressive paraparesis and altered sensation lasting approximately five days was admitted to our clinic. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed an advanced stage T7-8 epidural mass ventral to the spinal cord, which was believed to be a metastatic tumor considering the patient's age. A highly enhanced epidural mass and pedicle appeared during the MR scan. However, th...

Spinal epidural lipomatosis (SEL) results from an abnormal accumulation of unencapsulated fat within the epidural space and is a rare cause of spinal cord compression, which needs to be considered with a high index of suspicion. It most commonly occurs secondary to chronic corticosteroid use and endocrinopathies. Idiopathic cases are highly associated with obesity. We report an unusual case of ...

Spinal cord glioblastoma (SG) accounts for 1.5% of all spinal tumors and has a poor prognosis with survival ranging from 2 to 26 months from presentation. A 57-year-old male presented with one week of paraparesis and contrasted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of an epidural enhancing thoracic mass suspicious for an epidural abscess. Intraoperative and pathologic findings revealed SG. ...

In animal studies of severe acute pancreatitis, thoracic epidural anesthesia appears to enhance the splanchnic circulation, improve end-organ perfusion, and favorably influence mortality. The application of thoracic epidurals in the critically ill human patient is less clear. Methodological difficulties in reliably assessing mesenteric flow have hampered progress, and clinical concerns surround...

Chest pain is a common presentation to the emergency department. Aetiologies to be considered are usually cardiac or pulmonary in origin. We reported a rare case of thoracic spinal epidural haematoma initially presenting to the emergency department with chest pain. The patient re-attended the emergency department four hours after discharge with symptoms of cord compression. Magnetic resonance i...

1 . Kingwell BA, Thompson JM, Kaye DM, McPherson GA, Jennings GL, Esler MD: Heart rate spectral analysis, cardiac norepinephrine spillover, and muscle sympathetic nerve activity during human sympathetic nervous activation and failure. Circulation 1994; 90:234 40 2. Magnusdottir H, Kirno K, Ricksten S-E, Elam M: High thoracic epidural anesthesia does not inhibit sympathetic nerve activity in the...

1. Giebler RM, Scherer RU, Peters J. Incidence of neurologic complications related to thoracic epidural catheterization. Anesthesiology 1997;86:5563. 2. Miyazaki M, Takasita M, Matsumoto H, Sonoda H, Tsumura H, Torisu T. Spinal epidural hematoma after removal of an epidural catheter: Case report and review of the literature. J Spinal Disord Tech 2005;18:54751. 3. Lawton MT, Porter RW, Heiserman...

The use of fluoroscopy guidance together with the loss of resistance technique during epidural injections has been advocated lately; moreover, epidural injections in the absence of fluoroscopic guidance have a high rate of inaccurate needle-tip placement during the injections. However, the approach to the lower cervical and upper thoracic epidural space may be challenging due to its obscure lat...

BACKGROUND The sympathetic nervous system is considered to modulate the endotoxin-induced activation of immune cells. Here we investigate whether thoracic epidural anesthesia with its regional symapathetic blocking effect alters endotoxin-induced leukocyte-endothelium activation and interaction with subsequent endothelial injury. METHODS Sprague Dawley rats were anesthetized, cannulated and h...

BACKGROUND Epidural analgesia is commonly used to provide several types of pain relief. Although this technique has been widely used with many advantages, currently the complications appear to be increasing. Especially, inadvertent intravascular cannulation and intravascular local anesthetic administration can lead to fatal consequences. METHODS Data was collected on 296 patients undergoing e...