Rinsho Shinkeigaku (Clinical Neurology)

Brief Clinical Note

Cervical myelopathy in a patient with congenital cervico-cerebral vascular malformation

Kosuke Naito, M.D.1), Fusaichi Oya, M.D.2), Yo-ichi Takei, M.D.1), Kanji Yamamoto, M.D.1) and Shu-ichi Ikeda, M.D.1)

Third Department of Medicine1) and Neurosurgery2), Shinshu University school of Medicine

We report a 50 year-old woman with cervical myelopathy. The patient, who had cutaneous angiomas in the right orbital area, became aware of left upper limb weakness when she woke up, followed by painful abnormal sensation in both axilla and arms. MRI revealed an intramedullar lesion mainly located in cervical cord at the level of C3-C4. Angiography showed that serpentine left vertebral artery entered the canalis vertebralis at C3 and fed the blood flow of bilateral middle cerebral arteries. In this case, the upper cervical spinal cord ischemia might be induced by hemodynamic insufficiency of the anterior spinal artery ascribed to congenital cervico-cerebral vascular malformation.

(CLINICA NEUROL, 44: 623|625, 2004)
key words: cervico-cerebral vascular malformation, anterior spinal artery, spinal cord ischemia

(Received: 14-Oct-03)