Cervical spinal cord injury during cerebral angiography with MRI confirmation: case report.

We report the first case of MRI-documented cervical spinal cord injury during cerebral angiography. A 54-year-old woman underwent an angiogram for subarachnoid hemorrhage. Her head was secured in a plastic head-holder. At the end of the procedure, she was found to have a left hemiparesis. MRI revealed high signal in the cervical spinal cord. The etiology may have been mechanical due to patient positioning, or toxic, from contrast medium injection in the vessels feeding the spinal cord, or a combination of both.