Eosinophilic myelitis in the cervical cord mimicking intramedullary cord tumor.

Eosinophilic myelitis (EM) or atopic myelitis is a rare disease characterized by a myelitic condition in the spinal cord combined with allergic process. This disease has specific features of elevated serum IgE level, active reaction to mite specific antigen and stepwise progression of mostly the sensory symptoms. Toxocariasis can be related with a form of EM. This report describes two cases of cervical eosinophilic myelitis initially considered as intramedullary tumors. When a differential diagnosis of the intramedullary spinal cord lesion is in doubt, evaluation for eosinophilic myelitis and toxocariasis would be beneficial.

Percutaneous Disc Coagulation Therapy (PDCT) comparing with Automated Percutaneous Lumbar Discectomy (APLD) in Patients of Herniated Lumbar Disc Disease: Preliminary Report.

OBJECTIVE: Percutaneous techniques are rapidly replacing traditional open surgery. This is a randomized controlled trial study of clinical outcomes of Percutaneous Plasma Disc Coagulation Therapy (PDCT) in patients with HLD(herniated lumbar disc) as a new percutaneous access in comparison with Automated Percutaneous Lumbar Discectomy (APLD) in its clinical application and usefulness as a reliable alternative method. METHODS: The authors analyzed 25 patients who underwent PDCT randomized 1:1 to 25 who underwent APLD between June, 2010 and October, 2011. All patients had herniated lumbar disc diseases. The clinical outcomes were evaluated using Visual Analog Scales (VAS) score and MacNab's criteria. RESULTS: The age of the patients who underwent PDCT ranged from 29 to 88 years with a mean age of 51.8 years. The age of the APLD undergone patients' population ranged from 30 to 66 with a mean age of 46.0 years. The average preoperative VAS score in PDCT was 7.60 and 1.94 at 7months post-operatively, and in APLD was 7.32, and 3.53 at 7 months post-operatively (p<0.001). In Macnab's criteria, 20 patients (80%) had achieved favorable improvement (excellent and good) in PDCT group. In Macnab's criteria, 16 patients (64%) had achieved favorable improvement in APLD group (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: PDCT can be considered a viable option as a new percutaneous access to herniated lumbar disc. PDCT showed to be more effective than APLD in this study, allowing stable decompression and safe minimally invasive operation to an area desired by the operator in lumbar disc herniation patients, although further long term clinical evaluations are still necessary.