Low Back Pain (LBP) is the most common spine disease and it is the most common cause of absence from work in developed countries. At lumbar level, the natural history of herniated disc is ...characterized by a disappearance of clinical symptoms in up to 60% with conservative treatment through simple rest for about 6 weeks and reduction of the disk heniation revealed by CT or MR scans within eight to nine months after the onset of back pain. Surgery is considered the treatment of choice for extruded, migrated and free fragment herniated disk associated to clinical symptomatology of cono-cauda syndrome, progressive foot droop and hyperalgic radiculopathy. patients with a small or contained herniated disk, without any benefit from conservative medical treatment, can be candidates for one of minimally invasive percutaneous techniques, whose outcome, though, depends on the characteristics of hernia itself and on the chosen technique. The aim of this paper is to discuss about O2-O3 treatment for symptomatic not extruded herniated disk at lumbar level, highlighting about indication inclusion exclusion criteria and our results.
Introduction
This study aimed to illustrate the validity of the treatment with vertebroplasty (VP) in patients with aggressive or symptomatic vertebral hemangioma (VH) with or without epidural ...extension.
Methods
From January 2003 to December 2007, 24 consecutive patients have been treated with VP, for a total of 36 vertebral bodies affected by VH: two cervical, ten dorsal, 24 lumbar. All the patients complained of a pain syndrome resistant to continuous medical medication; four of 24 patients also presented aggressive magnetic resonance features of the vertebral lesion and two patients showed also epidural extension. A unipedicular approach has been performed in 16 patients; a bipedicular approach has been performed in six, while for the cervical spine an anterior–lateral approach with manual dislocation of the carotid axis has always been performed. Bone biopsy was never done. All procedures have been carried out with local anesthesia, except for the treatment of the cervical hemangiomas which has always been performed under general anesthesia. Four vertebral bodies in the same session have been treated in one case.
Results
Results have been evaluated with the visual analog scale and the Oswestry Disability Index methods. In all the patients, in the following 24–72 h, a successful outcome has been observed with a complete resolution of pain symptom. Extravertebral vascular or discal cement leakage has been observed in four patients, without any onset of clinical radicular syndrome due to epidural diffusion. Clinical and radiological follow-up until 4 years has been performed in 12 patients and it showed stability of the treatment and absence of pain.
Conclusions
Percutaneous treatment with VP for aggressive and symptomatic vertebral hemangiomas even with epidural extension is a valuable, mini-invasive, and quick method that allows a complete and enduring resolution of the painful vertebral symptoms without findings of fracture of a vertebral body adjacent or distant to the one treated.
Abstract The treatment of unruptured intracranial aneurysms (UIAs) remains complex and not clearly defined. While for ruptured intracranial aneurysms the management and the treatment option (surgery ...or endovascular treatment) are well defined by several trials, for asymptomatic UIAs the best management is still currently uncertain. The rationale to treat an UIA is to prevent the rupture and its consequent SAH and all complications derived from hemorrhage or reduce/eliminate neurological palsy. Although this statement is correct, the indication to treat an UIA should be based on a correct balance between the natural history of UIA and treatment risk. Patient's clinical history, aneurysm characteristics, and strategy management influence the natural history of UIAs and treatment outcomes. In the last 10 years and more, two important large multicenter studies were performed in order to analysis of all these factors and to evaluate the best treatment option for UIAs. The aim of this paper is to try to synthesize the possible indications to the endovascular treatment (EVT), when and how to treat an UIA.
We describe our preliminary experience with the vertebral body stenting system (VBS) for the treatment of osteoporotic vertebral fracture or traumatic vertebral fracture showing our clinical results ...at 12 months follow-up. Twenty patients (16 women, four men, mean age 71 years): four with traumatic vertebral fracture (Magerl A1 fractures) and 16 with osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture (VCFs) resistant to conservative therapy, were treated by vertebral body stenting system (VBS) as follows: two at level T11, four at T12, one at L1, two at L2, five at L3 and six at L4. All patients were studied by MR (protocol: sagittal T1W, T2W and T2 STIR) and MDCT with MPR reconstructions. All procedures were performed under local anesthesia with fluoroscopy guidance and a bipeduncular approach. VBS, a new system of implantation of endovertebral stent used as an alternative to conventional vertebroplasty (VP), was implanted in all patients to restore the loss of height in the fractured vertebral body. A clinical and x-ray follow-up was performed at six and 12 months evaluating the result by VAS and ODS scale. New vertebral fractures at a distant level were observed in two cases and treated by VP. VBS was successful and led to an excellent outcome in all patients with clinical improvement stable at six months and one year follow-up. The height in the fractured vertebral body was increased in 12 of the 20 VCFs by an average of 1.5 mm. No vascular, extraforaminal or epidural leakage or other adverse events were observed. In the clinical 12 months follow-up we recorded a reduction of four scores in the VAS evaluation and a 40% reduction in the ODS score compared with the pre-treatment values. Endovertebral stents were stable at 12 months at x-ray control in 19/20 patients. No new vertebral fracture located in adjacent vertebrae were observed at 12 month follow-up. By using a stent, the VBS system reduces the collapsed vertebral body and offers good height restoration. The mechanical scaffold of the stent restores the height and at the same time offers a cavity for injection of highly viscous PMMA bone cement without increasing the rate of new vertebral fracture post-VP. A long-term follow-up is recommended.
Low back pain is the commonest spine disease causing absence from work in developed countries. Low back pain with classical irradiation along the course of the nerve root affected is more frequently ...due to disc disease. In 60–80% of patients with herniated disc, radicular symptoms disappear with conservative treatment after about six weeks, the remainder are treated surgically with a 2–6% of incidence of true recurrence of herniation post-intervention and with failed back surgery syndrome in 15% of cases. Recently minimally invasive techniques have developed as “alternative” treatments to surgical intervention. This review aimed to assess the pathogenesis of low back pain caused by lumbar disc hernia as a basis for action of minimally invasive techniques; to illustrate the techniques already used or currently in use, to compare them in technical guidance, indications and complications, exposing for each of them the inclusion/exclusion criteria in enrolling patients and the imaging guide technique of choice. Minimally invasive techniques can be a valuable alternative to traditional surgery with low cost, low risk of complications, easy feasibility, and in the event of failure they do not exclude subsequent surgery.
We describe the usefulness of endovascular and direct percutaneous treatment as a therapy option for aneurysmal bone cysts (ABCs) of the spine. From January 2007 to December 2008, we treated six ...consecutive patients with symptomatic ABCs resistant to continuous medical management or with acute clinical onset of paraparesis at cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine level. Two patients were treated after emergency laminectomy. All patients were studied with an MRI protocol and multidetector CT with MPR reconstructions followed by angiographic control before treatment. The procedure was performed under general anaesthesia for all patients. Under CT or fluoroscopy guidance, percutaneous treatment was performed either by direct injection of Glubran® diluted at 30% with Lipiodol® only, or combined with endovascular treatment by Onyx® injection. Clinical and X-ray follow-up was performed at three and six months. Combined endovascular and percutaneous treatment for ABCs was successful and led to an excellent outcome in five out of six patients with clinical improvement. There were no periprocedural or subsequent clinical complications and the glue resulted in successful selective permanent occlusion with intralesional penetration. Direct sclerotherapy resulted in immediate thrombosis of the malformation with no progression of symptoms. Complete healing was observed in five out of six aggressive lesions. No major complications were noted. At six month follow-up the symptoms had completely resolved and X-ray control showed a partial or total sclerotic reaction of the lesion with stable clinical results (no partial or clinical abnormalities). One patient had a recurrence of the ABC with spinal cord cervical clinical symptomatology. Combined endovascular and percutaneous treatment or direct percutaneous sclerotherapy with glue alone are important, safe, effective therapy options for symptomatic aneurysmal bone cyst. Results are stable and confirmed by clinical and X-ray follow-up six months after treatment.
We describe our preliminary experience of a combined treatment with stenting and coiling for ruptured and unruptured complex cerebral aneurysms (AA) using new generation stents (Enterprise®, ...LeoPlus®, Solitaire®). Eighteen patients, 20 AA, were treated by stenting and coiling. Some had sacciform wide-necked partially thrombosed aneurysms, other had fusiform AA. Six ruptured AA were treated early, while the other 14 were treated electively. In four out of 20 AA coiling was performed by Jailing technique and in three cases a remodelling technique was also performed. Patients with ruptured AA were previously administered a heparin protocol during the procedure and given aspirin (500 mg) after stenting. Patients with unruptured AA were administered plavix and aspirin for seven days before the procedure. Post-intervention medical therapy was plavix and aspirin for six months, then aspirin (100 mg). MRA and DSA at were performed after six to 12 months. Treatment was successfully performed in all cases. The stent could be navigated within the cerebral arteries without any exchange procedure, and thanks to its retractability, it was positioned accurately. No procedure-related complication occurred. Complete occlusion of the aneurysm was observed in 14/20 AA, partial occlusion with residual sac in 2/20. At four months a residual neck was observed in 4/20 with an increase in residual sac at one year in one case treated by coiling. At one year, MRA showed a reduction of the neck in one case and a stable residual neck in the other. Stenting and coiling for sacciform wide-necked or fusiform aneurysms is a safe procedure without complications. Medical-therapy pre and post procedure associated with follow-up are necessary to establish the occlusion rate.
This paper illustrates the validity of vertebroplasty (VP) in patients with primary benign or metastatic lesion in the cervical spine. From January 2006 to December 2007, ten consecutive patients ...were treated with VP for a total of ten vertebral bodies: two symptomatic vertebral haemangiomas at C5 and C4.3, multiple myeloma at C2 (two cases) and one case at C4, five patients with vertebral metastasis from breast or lung cancer at C2, C4 (three cases) and C5. All the patients complained of pain resistant to continuous medical management. All procedures were performed under general anaesthesia by anterolateral approach under CT or fluoroscopy control with manual dislocation of the carotid axis. A transoral approach under fluoroscopy was performed to treat the C2 lesion. Bone biopsy was never performed. VP was performed to prevent fracture after implantation of a double discal prothesis in two patients. For patients with multiple myeloma, VP was performed to prevent new vertebral fracture. VP was performed before of radiotherapy in three patients with metastasis, and just after radiotherapy in two. Two metastatic patients were lost at one year follow-up due to death from systematic diffusion. Results were evaluated on the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the Oswestry Disability Index (ODS). A successful outcome was observed with a complete resolution or partial reduction of pain in 90% of patients 24–72 hours after VP. At 12 months follow-up, we recorded a reduction of four points in the VAS evaluation and a 45% reduction in the ODS score. No extravertebral vascular or discal cement leakage was observed. At 12 months, X-ray follow-up showed a stable result. Percutaneous treatment with VP for benign or malignant cervical spine lesions is a valuable, mini-invasive and quick method that allows a complete and enduring resolution of painful vertebral symptoms without fracture of the adjacent or distal vertebral bodies.
This study illustrates the usefulness of vertebral biopsy in osteoporotic patients previously treated with vertebroplasty (VP) who present at follow-up with a new fracture in a vertebral so-ma ...adjacent or distant from the collapsed vertebral body.
Five hundred and fifty patients with osteoporotic vertebral collapse underwent a minimally invasive treatment with vertebroplasty (VP) for a total of 980 vertebral bodies. The approach was unipedicular in 520 patients and bipedicular in 30. Only cases with unclear findings at MR or CT (23 patients) were scheduled for a vertebral biopsy before VP treatment. The biopsy results were positive for haematological disease in only eight patients. A vertebral biopsy was carried out during re-treatment with VP in all patients who presented a vertebral refracture in the three month follow-up at a site adjacent to or distant from the previously treated vertebra (21 patients). We have found new fractures of adjacent vertebrae in 15 patients and new fractures of distant vertebrae in 16 patients at three month follow-up examination. Five of the 31 cases (16%) of spinal refracture, where during vertebroplasty treatment a bone biopsy and a sternal medullary aspiration had been carried out, an anatomopathological response to multiple myeloma was responsible for the refracture.
It is useful to perform a spinal bone biopsy during re-treatment of the vertebroplasty procedure to rule out multiple myeloma or other disease as the cause of the new collapse in patients with osteoporotic disease presenting a new vertebral fracture in an adjacent or distant site from the previously collapsed vertebral body.
We report our experience in the treatment of thoracic and lumbosacral spinal pain due to vertebral bone fractures. This pathology can be related to osteoporosis but also to metastatic disease and ...less frequently vertebral haemangioma.
From April 2001 through December 2004 we treated 238 patients for a total of 455 vertebral bodies. 175 patients had osteoporosis, 70 had metastasis and 13 had vertebral haemangioma. Sacroplasty was performed in six patients to obtain a cement filling of sacral metastasis.
The procedures were mostly performed under fluoroscopy and only in cases of metastasis or sacroplasty was CT/fluoroscopy guidance preferred for optimal filling of the area of osteolysis.
We evaluated the results at six and 18 months follow-up and analysed the incidence of new vertebral fractures, vascular and disk leakage and the incidence of major and minor complications. Biopsy was performed only in doubtful cases. We obtained different results considering the etiology of the disease. We obtained a 92% success rate at six months follow-up and 89% success at 18 months follow-up in osteoporosis, a 77% and 72% success rate at six and 18 months follow-up in metastastic patients, and no change at six and 18 months follow-up in patients with vertebral haemangioma in which the success rate was of 95%.
We noted extravertebral leakage in 41% of vertebral bodies of which 31% were treated at the level of the vascular space and only 10% at the level of the disk space, and symptomatic in only two cases (acute compressive radiculitis, medically treated and resolved within a month).
Six patients presented new fractures in the adjacent vertebral body and 30% had a partial recovery in the height of the vertebral body with kyphosis curve reduction.
Vertebroplasty is a good technique to obtain spine pain relief and has a low incidence of side effects. Good quality equipment is important to obtain these results.
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