Diastematomyelia is a rare congenital anomaly characterized by a division of the spinal cord or the filum terminale into two parts. In Korea, only one case has been reported. The authors have operated on 5 cases of diastematomyelia with septum since July, 1978. The ages ranged from 1 to 44 years (median; 11 years). There were 2 boys, 2 girls and an adult man. The disease manifested by cutaneous...

Perineural or Tarlov cysts were first described by Tarlov [1] in 1938 during his autopsy studies of the filum terminale [1]. Studies have shown the prevalence of these cysts to vary from 4.6% in some to upto 9% in others [2,3]. Although most of these lesions are asymptomatic, on rare occasions, they may cause local or radicular pain, dysesthesia or paresthesia, paresis and bladder or bowel dysf...

Filum terminale arteriovenous fistula (FTAVF) presenting as a cause of failed back surgery syndrome is a rare entity. We report a 48-year-old male patient who presented with clinical features of a conus medullaris/cauda equina lesion. He had upper and lower motor neuron signs in both the lower limbs with autonomic dysfunction. The patient was misdiagnosed and was operated twice earlier for lumb...

Spinal neurenteric cysts are rare congenital cysts of endodermal origin. A 34 years old man presented with burning feet syndrome of two years duration. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed an intradural extramedullary cystic mass lesion extending from L2 to L5 vertebrae causing severe compression and displacement of terminal portion of conus medullaris and filum terminale to the right side...

PURPOSE The filum terminale (FT) is a fibrous band that connects the conus medullaris to the posterior body of the coccyx. Considering the advances of ultrasonography (US) technology and improvements in the resolution of US images, we aimed to re-establish the US features of the normal FT in infants younger than 6 months of age. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed 30 spinal US scans, stored a...

The development of a suitable animal model is important for clarifying the pathogenesis of tethered cord syndrome (TCS). This study was undertaken to develop a new animal model for investigating the pathogenesis and therapeutic strategies for TCS. A traction device, a filum terminale tractor, was designed exclusively for this experiment. A TCS model was produced in cats using the tractor to fix...

BACKGROUND Filum terminale (FT) is a structure that is intimately associated with conus medullaris, the most caudal part of the spinal cord. It is well documented that certain regions of the adult human central nervous system contains undifferentiated, progenitor cells or multipotent precursors. The primary objective of this study was to describe the distribution and progenitor features of this...

The cauda equina is composed of the lumbosacral and the coccygeal nerve roots and the filum terminale. In the embryonic period, discrepancy in development between the termination of the spinal cord and the spinal column results in elongation of the nerve roots as well as the filum terminale in this region. Although the vascular anatomy of the caudal spinal structure shares many common features ...