Spinal anesthesia in a patient with postoperative iatrogenic pseudomeningocele: A case report

Although spinal anesthesia is one of the most reliable anesthetic techniques in clinical practice, failures may occur in daily practice at rare occasions. Their causes are diverse and they include anatomical structural variations. In particular, postoperative anatomical changes often occur in patients who have undergone spine surgery and may cause failures of spinal anesthesia. Postoperative pseudomeningocele constitutes extradural cerebrospinal fluid collected from a dural tear and it is considered a very rare complication of spine surgery. We describe the case where a patient with unexpected postoperative iatrogenic pseudomeningocele received lower extremity surgery under spinal anesthesia.