Acromegaly presenting with myelopathy due to ossification of posterior longitudinal ligament: a case report.

Background: Acromegaly is a rare disease caused by high serum levels of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), often originating from a pituitary adenoma. Spinal and peripheral joint abnormalities are caused by these hormonal hypersecretions. In particular, the response to GH is involved in the onset of ossification of the spinal ligament in vitro, especially ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL).

A Case of a Spinal Extradural Arachnoid Cyst.

The patient was a 49-year-old woman with a chief complaint of hip and buttock pain that had persisted for 3 years. She visited our hospital for aggravation of the pain. Percussion tenderness of the spinous process was observed and a T1-low, T2-high cystic lesion was detected on the dorsal side of the dural canal at the 12th thoracic vertebral level on MRI performed by a previous physician.

Use of intrawound vancomycin powder against postoperative infection after spine surgery.

Local application of vancomycin has recently become widely used in spine surgery. However, local application is not included in the indication and has not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Thus, we searched for reports with "intra wound-vancomycin" and "SSI" as keywords in the MEDLINE database, and investigated the efficacy, problems with use, and future prospects based on these reports.

Solitary Spinal Epidural Metastasis from Gastric Cancer.

Solitary epidural space metastasis of a malignant tumor is rare. We encountered a 79-year-old male patient with solitary metastatic epidural tumor who developed paraplegia and dysuria. The patient had undergone total gastrectomy for gastric cancer followed by chemotherapy 8 months priorly.

Evaluation of antimicrobial prophylaxis against postoperative infection after spine surgery: Limit of the first generation cephem.

In our department, first-generation cephem (CEZ) are generally administered for 2 days as antimicrobial prophylaxis (AMP) for spinal surgery. However, the incidence of surgical site infection (SSI) has recently increased, particularly cases involving coagulase-negative Staphylococci (CNS) as an etiologic agent. The objective was to elucidate the problems with the current AMP and the risk factors of SSI through a retrospective investigation of affected cases.

Spontaneous symptomatic pseudoarthrosis at the l2-l3 intervertebral space with diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis: a case report.

Pseudoarthrosis at the intervertebral space in patients with ankylosing spondylitis has occasionally been reported, but symptomatic pseudoarthrosis at the intervertebral disc level is rare in patients with diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH). Here, we report a case of symptomatic pseudoarthrosis at the L2-L3 intervertebral space that was diagnosed based on clinical history. We first performed L1-L5 fixation, but back-out of the pedicle screw occurred in the early postoperative phase and may have been caused by a short fixation range and concomitant Parkinson's disease.

Intra-Articular Giant Heterotopic Ossification following Total Knee Arthroplasty for Charcot Arthropathy.

Although the Charcot arthropathy may be associated with serious complications, total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is the preferred choice of treatment by patients. This case report presents an 80-year-old man with intra-articular giant heterotopic ossification following loosening of femoral and tibial implants and femoral condylar fracture. He had undergone TKA because of Charcot neuropathy seven years ago and had been doing well since.

Antimicrobial prophylaxis for spinal surgery.

Background: The concept of antimicrobial prophylaxis (AMP) did not exist in Japan until recently. Therefore, postoperative administration of antimicrobial drugs has long been practiced under the pretext of prophylaxis against surgical site infection (SSI). In recent years, however, the concept of AMP and prophylactic countermeasures against SSI, based on evidence of the effectiveness of AMP, has gradually spread in Japan.