We report on a 12-year-old boy in whom a glass fragment migrated into the lumbar spinal canal causing low back pain and radiculopathy 6 years after injury. Computed tomography showed a foreign body in the anterior spinal canal of L5/S1. The patient underwent recapping T-saw laminoplasty to remove the foreign body. Scar formation was noted at the anterior dura. The glass fragment seemed to have ...

While undergoing long-term physiotherapy, a 41 year old woman with a chronic S1 radiculopathy developed progressive, painless enlargement of the weak calf. Gastrocnemius muscle biopsy disclosed changes of partial denervation and reinnervation, with small groups of type I and type II atrophic muscle fibres and abundant hypertrophic fibres of both types but mostly type II. It is postulated that, ...

Lumbar synovial cyst arises from the facet joint and can lead to back pain, radiculopathy, neurogenic claudication or even cauda equina syndrome. Although most surgeons would consider surgery to be the treatment of choice, the natural history of the disease process remains unknown and uncertainty still exists regarding optimal management of this controversial entity. We illustrate a case of lar...

BACKGROUND Active muscular trigger points (aMTPs) presenting with radiating pain can interfere in diagnosis and treatment of patients suffering from lumbosacral radiculopathy. OBJECTIVES We aimed to diagnose and evaluate the trigger point therapy on the outcome of pain in patients with lumbosacral radiculopathy. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 98 patients were enrolled suffered with chroni...

OBJECTIVE We evaluated our experience with laparoscopic L5-S1 anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF). METHODS This represents a retrospective analysis of consecutive patients who underwent L5-S1 laparoscopic ALIF between February 1998 and August 2003. RESULTS Twenty-eight patients underwent L5-S1 LAIF (15 males and 13 females). The mean age was 43 years (range, 26 to 67). Mean operative ti...

The 'foraminoplastic' ventral epidural approach and its advantages in the treatment of extruded disk herniation at the L5-S1 level are described. Percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy is a minimally invasive procedure applicable to various types of lumbar disk herniation, but the L5-S1 disk space is still challenging to access due to anatomic limitations such as high iliac crest or severely...

BACKGROUND Needle EMG may be negative in mild or predominantly sensory lumbosacral radiculopathies. In such cases, an increase in the latency of the soleus H-reflex is a useful diagnostic criterion for establishing sensory fiber compromise at the S1 root level. However, if clinical signs of radicular involvement are lacking, the latency of the H-reflex is normal. We therefore studied the recrui...

OBJECTIVE To observe the contrast spreading patterns in the retrodiscal (RD) approach for transforaminal epidural steroid injections and their effect on pain reduction. METHOD Patients with L5 radiculopathy who were scheduled to receive lumbar TF-EPB were consecutively included. We randomly divided them into the L4-5 RD and L5-S1 RD groups and administered 1 cc of contrast dye into epidural s...