Cauda Equina Tumors Research Articles

Relief of Nocturnal Intractable Low Back and Sciatic Pain by "Chair Sleep"

LOW BACK PAIN and sciatic pain, worse at night, unrelieved by bed rest and by large doses of the usual anodynes, and occasionally associated with minimal abnormal neurological signs, is a common symptom found in cauda equina tumor, usually a benign neurofibroma or meningioma. The writer reports an additional phenomenon which he has noted in the histories of some of these patients, namely an attempt by the patient to obtain relief of pain and its resulting insomnia, by sleeping in a chair at night. Although the use of a rocking chair for the diurnal relief of back pain of varied etiology is well known, the writer believes that this nocturnal chair sitting discovered by the patient as a therapeutic measure has not been emphasized in the medical literature as an important warning to the physician of the possibility of an intraspinal tumor as a cause for the patient's complaints, and

A Case of the Cauda Equina Tumor

A case of the extradural cauda equina tumor demonstrating the bony involvement of the fifth lumbar vertebra and a dumb bell shape was reported.A man, thirty-three years old, had the low back pain and the radiating pain to the left lower extremity. In 1958, he complained of the above symptoms after the lumbar contusion due to the traffic accident. At Jan. 25, 1966, when admitted, he showed the left sciatica and the numbness on his left lower extremity, and his radiograms showed the widening of the spinal canal and the destruction of the fifth lumbar vertebra, and the filling defect due to pressure from the left side in the myelogram. The dumb bell shaped tumor was removed from the left side of the vertebral body (L5) extradurally and proved the neurinoma histologically.

Two New Signs Suggestive of Cauda Equina Tumor

Two New Signs Suggestive of Cauda Equina Tumor

A TUMOR OF THE CAUDA EQUINA WITH THE FROIN SYNDROME

Cushing and Ayer recently 1 called attention to the unusual finding of xanthrochromia and increased protein in the spinal fluid above tumors of the cauda equina. This is most confusing in the localization of cauda equina tumors. That a Froin syndrome signifies spinal cord compression, due to tumor or other lesion, sufficiently marked to form a closed cavity and stasis of the fluid in the lumbar culdesac below the lesion, has been generally accepted. Cushing and Ayer report five cases of caudal tumor in which this was observed—a unique report. The following case report is submitted as another illuminating example: REPORT OF CASE Clinical History. —A. B., aged 60, a public accountant, was seen Jan. 12, 1923, because of severe neuralgic attacks along the course of the right anterior crural nerve. The family and personal histories were negative. About August, 1921, he had noticed discomfort and soreness in