Intramedullary Spinal Cord Abscess Management: Case Series, Operative Video, and Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND: Intramedullary spinal cord abscess (ISCA) is an extremely rare disease, which has had fewer than 250 reported cases since its initial description in 1830. The condition is limited to level V evidence, limiting the ability for surgeons to characterize and treat it. OBJECTIVE: To report the cases of 2 patients with ISCA and their surgical management: a 59-year-old woman who presented with progressive right hemiparesis and a 69-old man who presented with acute gait instability and significant bilateral shoulder pain. In addition, to report findings from a systematic literature review and associated logistic regression analysis. METHODS: A MEDLINE and Embase search was conducted using the keywords "intramedullary," "spinal cord," "abscess," and "tuberculoma" and the results were screened for case reports. A logistic regression model was fit 100 times on data to retrieve predictor odds ratios. RESULTS: Two hundred case reports of ISCA were identified between 1965 and 2022. Logistic regression determined that the only variables of significance were age (P < 0.01) and antibiotics (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Treatment of ISCAs has significantly improved over the years. However, ISCAs are still poorly understood. Our recommendations can be used to guide diagnosis and treatment.

Tandem Thoracic Spinal Cord Lesions of Differing Pathologies: Concurrent Metastatic Lung Adenocarcinoma Lesion in Close Proximity to a Intradural Meningioma.

Simultaneously having two pathologically distinct neoplastic lesions causing critical spinal stenosis is exceedingly rare. When such lesions are near one another but occupy different spinal compartments, significant challenges arise. We present the case of a patient with metastatic non-small cell carcinoma to the thoracic spine and an intradural meningioma occurring two spinal segments from each other. A 66-year-old female presented with one month of progressive mechanical back pain and two days of lower extremity weakness and urinary retention. She was found to have a left upper lobe lung mass. An urgent biopsy demonstrated non-small cell lung carcinoma. MRI of her thoracic spine demonstrated a T9 intradural-extramedullary enhancing lesion simultaneously with a destructive lesion of the T11 vertebral body extending into the anterior epidural space with significant cord compression at T9 and T11. The patient was taken for an urgent posterior decompression from T9 to T11, T9 left-sided pediculectomy with resection of intradural tumor, T11 corpectomy with anterior cage reconstruction, and instrumented fixation from T7 to L2. The pathology from the T9 lesion demonstrated findings consistent with a meningioma while the T11 lesion confirmed metastatic non-small cell lung adenocarcinoma. The patient improved neurologically postoperatively and regained the ability to ambulate within one week of surgery. Pathologically distinct spinal lesions in close anatomic proximity, but in two separate compartments are exceptionally rare. We performed a simultaneous posterior approach for resection of the T9 meningioma and a T11 corpectomy for the metastatic lesion with rapid neurologic recovery.

Rapid Development of Spinal Epidural Lipomatosis after Treatment of Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer with Second-Generation Androgen Receptor Antagonists.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have described the association of spinal epidural lipomatosis with several conditions including chronic steroid therapy, Cushing's syndrome, obesity, Paget disease, and hypothyroidism. We present a report of rapid development of spinal epidural lipomatosis after treatment with second-generation anti-androgen therapy, a new strategy for treatment of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer that has been increasingly employed in the past few years. A comprehensive discussion of the underlying molecular networks involving androgen receptor blockage and adipocyte differentiation, as well as the clinical implications of such a phenomenon, are provided. CASE DESCRIPTION: We describe the clinical and radiological evolution of a 58-year-old male patient with metastatic prostate cancer, who developed new onset of rapidly progressing lumbosacral epidural lipomatosis with significant compression of the nerve roots of the cauda equina a few months after initiation of treatment with second-generation androgen receptor antagonists. CONCLUSIONS: The underlying pathophysiology of adipose tissue growth following the administration of anti-androgen therapy is discussed, with emphasis on both the canonical Wnt/ß-catenin pathway as well as in the Wnt-independent pathway involving direct activation of downstream transcription factors from the T-cell factor family by the androgen receptor. As second-generation androgen receptor antagonists have been increasingly used for treatment of castration-resistant stage metastatic prostate cancer, new onset of symptomatic epidural lipomatosis should be considered as a possible differential diagnosis, especially because the urinary symptoms of cauda equina compression may be improperly attributed to the primary prostate neoplasm.