Successful Treatment of a Spinal Intradural Arteriovenous Fistula

ABSTRACT

An 18 year-old male patient presenting with progressive paraparesis was found to have a spinal arteriovenous fistula at the thoracolumbar vertebral level. The lesion consisted of a direct communication of the anterior spinal artery with a distended arterialized vein that drained mostly superiorly to the thoracic cord and simulated a long dorsal lesion. The patient was successfully treated by surgical excision of feeding artery and draining vein including fistula at the L1-3 vertebral level. Ischemic damage of the spinal cord due to venous hypertension is suggested as the cause of the clinical manifestation.