The most common peripheral nerve compression syndrome is compression neuropathy of the median nerve at the carpal tunnel. The median nerve innervates the wrist and sends cutaneous sensory branches to innervate the palm, the palmar aspect of the first three…
The sacral plexus and sciatic nerve are formed within the pelvis from contributions of the ventral nerve roots of L4 through S4. The sciatic nerve originates from the sacral plexus within the pelvis and then exits the pelvis through the…
The brachial plexus is the name given to the plexus of nerves formed by the lower four ventral cervical roots (C5-C8) and the first thoracic ventral root (T1) as they emerge from the spinal cord, intermingle, realign, and emerge from…
Successful surgery for spondylosis and disc disease relieves the initial symptoms and, for cases in which stabilization is performed, provides solid fusion at the operative site. Complications of surgery can include failure to relieve the symptoms, failure of fusion, and…
Compression fractures of vertebral bodies affect approximately 750,000 people each year in the United States and up to 25% of postmenopausal women. The leading cause of vertebral compression fractures is osteoporosis, a disease that affects 44 million Americans. Younger patients…
First described more than 40 years ago, intraoperative neurophysiologic monitoring (IONM) is now used routinely in many surgical procedures that carry risk to the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system. These include closure of intracranial aneurysms and arteriovenous malformations;…
The spine and the peripheral nervous system remain diagnostically challenging to image owing to the extensive bony canal, relatively small size of the neural elements, and multiplicity of clinical symptoms. A wide variety of techniques are available for imaging the…
Noninfectious inflammatory spinal cord lesions include multiple sclerosis (MS), acute transverse myelitis (ATM), neuromyelitis optica (NMO), neurosarcoidosis, and Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). Except for MS, these entities are rare. The disease etiologies are incompletely understood but seem to involve immune system…
Noninfective inflammations of the vertebral spine can be caused by seronegative spondyloarthropathies or by seropositive rheumatoid arthritis. The seronegative spondyloarthropathies include ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis, reactive arthritis, arthritis associated with inflammatory bowel diseases, and undifferentiated arthritis. ANYLOSING SPONDYLITIS Epidemiology Ankylosing…
SPINAL MENINGITIS Spinal meningitis is infection of the spinal cord, leptomeninges, and subarachnoid space by various pathogens. It is also called infectious arachnoiditis. Epidemiology The incidence of bacterial meningitis is 2 to 3 per 100,000. It occurs most commonly in…