CASE REPORTS   

Journal of Neurosurgical Sciences 2001 June;45(2):120-4

Copyright © 2001 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Spinal-cord compression due to extradural amyloidosis of the cervico-occipital hinge, in a hemodialysed patient. A case report

Amoroso E. ¹, Vitale C. ², Silvestro A. ²

¹ Neurosurgical Unit, “Umberto I” Hospital, ASL Salerno 1 - Nocera, Salerno; ² XXV Neurosurgical Division, AORN “A. Cardarelli” - Naples, Italy

Long-­term dia­lysed ­patients can devel­op an arthrop­a­thy, ­called dial­y­sis arthrop­a­thy, due to the dep­o­si­tion and tras­for­ma­tion of the β2 micro­glob­u­lin in amy­loid. The involve­ment of the ­spine, ­called destruc­tive spon­dy­lo arthrop­a­thy (DSA), ­occurs ­between 10 and 25% of ­these ­patients, and some­times caus­es neu­ro­log­i­cal dam­age. The ­disc ­space nar­row­ing, ver­te­bral ­body ero­sion and pseu­do­cys­tis, in pres­ence of pol­i­ar­throp­a­thy, chron­ic ­renale fail­ure, and car­pal tun­nel sin­drome, ­allows to ­make a diag­no­sis of DSA, ­which is ­proved by his­to­log­i­cal find­ing of β2 micro­glob­u­lin-amy­loid. We ­report a ­rare ­case of spi­nal ­cord com­pres­sion due to β2 micro­glob­u­lin-amy­loid depos­it in extrad­u­ral ­space of cer­vi­co-occip­i­tal ­hinge.