Oral extrusion of a vertebral body replacement device after chordoma tumor growth and radiation: case report and review.

Background: Screw migration following anterior cervical discectomy and fusion is a very rare complication and it is often related to device failure. Even more exceptional is the extrusion of an intervertebral graft.

Case Presentation: We report the second case of migration and extrusion through the oral cavity of a cervical vertebral body replacement device (expandable cylinder) in a patient that had undergone cervical corpectomy due to a vertebral chordoma.

Subdural fluid accumulation caused by ventriculoperitoneal shunt underdrainage: A rare and paradoxical complication.

Background: Subdural fluid collection in patients with internal cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) shunts has generally been linked to overdrainage and more rarely to pus accumulation. The authors present a previously unrecognized condition leading to extra-axial CSF accumulation: shunt underdrainage. Treatment of coexisting subdural fluid collection and hydrocephalus, disorders that have previously only been reported concurrently following head trauma or subarachnoid hemorrhage, is controversial.

Parafalcine subdural empyema: The unresolved controversy over the need for surgical treatment.

Background: Parafalcine subdural empyema (SDE) is a rare entity consisting of pus accumulating below the longitudinal sinus, between the falx cerebri and the arachnoid layer covering the medial surface of the cerebral hemisphere. Its treatment strategy is controversial, but most clinicians have the general belief that appropriate treatment consists of prompt surgery combined with long-term antibiotic therapy. Nevertheless, six reports published in the 1980s provided evidence that antibiotic therapy alone is a safe and suitable option.