Cystic lesions of the spine are a diverse group of infectious, post-traumatic, postinterventional, and degenerative abnormalities with the common feature of a fluid collection with a wall. The cellular linings of the walls may be squamous epithelium, columnar epithelium, arachnoid…
Spinal vascular malformations are developmental derangements of the interconnections between arteries and veins, with secondary features of vascular enlargement, aneurysm and varix formation, mass effect from the enlarged vessels, excessively high flow with vascular steal and potential cardiac failure, and/or…
Spinal cord trauma is the application of excess force to the spinal cord and the consequences of that force for the cord. Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) may result from an acute blow to the spine, resulting in fracture or…
Traumatic injuries of the spinal column reflect the mechanisms that produced them. The patterns of these injuries on imaging studies, therefore, help to predict the underlying mechanisms of trauma and lead, in turn, to more complete description of the pathologic…
Spinal epidural hematoma and spinal subdural hematoma are accumulations of blood within the epidural or subdural spaces of the spinal canal or both. They may appear “spontaneously,” result from trauma, or arise secondary to coagulopathy, vascular malformation, neoplasm, or another…
Spinal cord ischemia is caused by deficient spinal arterial blood flow secondary to occlusion of intercostal/lumbar arteries or to involvement of the intrinsic arteries of the cord. It is also referred to as ischemic myelomalacia of the spinal cord. Epidemiology…
The normal vascular anatomy of the spine and spinal cord is described in this chapter as it follows the blood flow from large arteries to smaller arterial trunks and through the capillaries to venous drainage channels of progressively larger size.…
Degeneration of the spine should be distinguished from normal aging of the spine. Normal aging retains the biomechanical and biochemical functions of the spine, whereas degeneration does not. The claim that disc degeneration begins in the first decade of life…
The spines of older individuals have both the changes of normal aging and the changes of “degeneration.” In the absence of accepted criteria to distinguish aging and degeneration, the features that characterize the majority of individuals at a specified age…
I. THE SPINAL CORD The spinal cord is the segment of the central nervous system that lies within the spinal canal caudal to the foramen magnum ( Figs. 5-1 to 5-3 ). The top of the spinal cord is taken…