Three Cases of Thoracic Myelopathy due to Ligamentum Flavum Ossification

ABSTRACT

Ossification of ligamentum flavum is a very rare disease and one of the new disease entities in myelopathy. We report three cases of ossification of ligamentum flavum in thoracic spine causing thoracic myelopathy. Main symptoms of this disease are numbness of both legs and feet, gait disturbance and spastic motor weakness. Simple spine X-ray, metrizamide myelogram, CT and MRI are most useful diagnostic tools. Sufficient decompressive laminectomy and facetectomy are treatment of choice.