Rinsho Shinkeigaku (Clinical Neurology)

Brief Clinical Note

Disseminated metastatic tumor at dorsal surface of medulla oblongata presenting intractable hiccups. a case report

Hidetaka Arishima, M.D. and Ken-ichirou Kikuta, M.D.

Department of Neurosurgery, University of Fukui

We report the case of disseminated metastatic tumor at dorsal surface of medulla oblongata presenting intractable hiccups. A 73-yaer-old man has a history of for metastatic lung tumor of the left tempral lobe. Although 3 surgeries and 4 radiotherapies were performed in the last 8 years, residual tumor grew slowly. He presented with intractable hiccups. His hiccups continued for 30 minutes, sometimes for 3 hours with obstruction of eating. Contrast-enhanced Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging demonstrated the dissemination of metastatic lung tumor at dorsal surface of medulla oblongata and ventral surface of midbrain. Some literatures reported the patients with intractable hiccups caused by dorsal medullary lesions. Therefore, we thought that the small disseminated tumor at dorsal surface of medulla oblongata caused the hiccups. Evaluation of dorsal medullay area by MR imaging is important to reveal the cause of intractable hiccups.
Full Text of this Article in Japanese PDF (300K)

(CLINICA NEUROL, 51: 279|281, 2011)
key words: hiccups, disseminated metastatic tumor, magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, dorsal surface of medulla oblongata

(Received: 11-Nov-10)