Relationship between Lower Limb Pain Intensity and Dynamic Lumbopelvic-Hip Alignment in Patients with Degenerative Lumbar Spinal Canal Stenosis: A Cross-Sectional Study

Methods@#Thirty patients with LSS scheduled for spine surgery participated in this study. Lower limb pain was assessed using the Visual Analog Scale (VAS), and the patients were divided into two groups based on the mean scores (patients with scores above and below the mean were classified as the high-VAS and low-VAS groups, respectively). The kinematics of the spine, pelvis, and hip joints during gait were then measured using a 3D motion analysis system. Student paired t -tests were used to compare the angles of the spine, pelvis, and hip during gait between the two groups. @*Results@#Compared to those in the low-VAS group, the spine was significantly extended and bent toward the more painful lower limb side, and the pelvis was significantly anteriorly tilted among individuals in the high-VAS group. @*Conclusions@#Patients with LSS experiencing severe pain in their lower limb tend to keep the spine in a more extended position, bend laterally toward the painful side, and have an anteriorly tilted pelvic posture. The dynamic spinal and pelvic alignment was closely related to the intensity of the lower limb pain.

An Autopsy Case of Bilateral Tension Pneumothorax after Acupuncture / 全日本鍼灸学会雑誌

Acupuncture is one of the most popular complementary therapies in the world. Pneumothorax due to perforation of the lungs by needle insertion is one of the most common and serious complications of acupuncture treatment. Although there have been several case studies of pneumothorax induced by acupuncture, as far as we know there have been no reports on the pathological findings of autopsy cases.<BR>In this report, we describe the pathological findings of an autopsy case of bilateral tension pneumothorax after acupuncture. The patient suffered dyspnea and chest pain soon the completionof an acupuncture treatment, and died 90 min later. Several ecchymoses were macroscopically observed on the parietal pleura in the left and right thoracic cavity, suggesting that needles were inserted into the thoracic cavity and that the lungs were perforated. The many black spots we observed on the parietal pleura along the vertebral column microscopically consisted of a number of dust-like black pigments and macrophages containing these pigments. These spots seemed to have appeared because of the previous insertion of needles.