The development of a suitable animal model is important for clarifying the pathogenesis of tethered cord syndrome (TCS). This study was undertaken to develop a new animal model for investigating the pathogenesis and therapeutic strategies for TCS. A traction device, a filum terminale tractor, was designed exclusively for this experiment. A TCS model was produced in cats using the tractor to fixate the filum terminale to the dorsal aspect of the second sacrum. The responses to tethering were evaluated by electron microscopy and electromyography for detection of somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) and motor evoked potentials (MEPs) at designated time points. Progressive swaying gait and lameness in clinical performance were observed with cord traction. Histopathological examination revealed an association between the increasing traction in the spinal cord and the increase in impaired nerve cells. No changes of SEPs and MEPs were detected in the untethered cats, while the latencies of SEPs and MEPs significantly increased in the tethered cats. The TCS model established in this study is simple and reproducible, in which varying degrees of tension could be applied to the neural elements.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep09116 | DOI Listing |
Case Rep Surg
January 2025
Department of General Surgery, Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, Moshi PO Box 3010, Tanzania.
Meningomyelocele and meningocele are types of neural tube defects, which are congenital abnormalities of the spine and spinal cord. These conditions are frequently encountered by pediatric neurosurgeons worldwide and represent a significant public health concern due to their association with a range of collateral conditions, other malformations, and increased morbidity. While many cases can be identified during prenatal ultrasound screenings, this is often challenging in resource-limited settings with poor health-seeking behaviors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Med Case Rep
January 2025
Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Kanazawa University, 13-1 Takara-machi, Kanazawa City, Ishikawa, 920-8641, Japan.
Background: Intrathecal baclofen therapy can substantially improve symptoms in patients with severe spasticity owing to traumatic spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, cerebral paresis, or tethered cord syndrome. Problems associated with intrathecal catheters include migration, laceration, occlusion, or disconnection. Several case reports have described the management of catheter fragments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA A Pract
January 2025
Département d'Anesthésie, Hôpital Antoine Béclère, APHP.Université Paris-Saclay, Clamart, France.
We describe a patient with severe Arnold Chiari Malformation and syringomyelia who underwent gynecological laparoscopy in an emergency context; no brain imaging was available. We here report the successful use of optic nerve sheath diameter (ONSD) and middle cerebral artery (MCA) velocity measurements as surrogate monitoring for cerebral blood flow and intracranial pressure, respectively. MCA velocity was low when assessed after peritoneal insufflation and ONSD increased to 6.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMaternal exposures are known to influence the risk of isolated cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL/P) - a common and highly heritable birth defect with a multifactorial etiology. To identify new CL/P risk loci, we conducted a genome-wide gene-environment interaction (GEI) analysis of CL/P on a sample of 540 cases and 260 controls recruited from the Philippines, incorporating the interaction effects of genetic variants with maternal smoking and vitamin use. As GEI analyses are typically low in power and the results can be difficult to interpret, we used multiple testing frameworks to evaluate potential GEI effects: 1 degree-of-freedom (1df) GxE test, the 3df joint test, and the two-step EDGE approach.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Congenital NAD deficiency disorder (CNDD) is a multisystem condition in which cardiac, renal, vertebral, and limb anomalies are most common, but anomalies in all organ systems have been identified. Patients with this condition have biallelic pathogenic variants involving genes in the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD ) synthesis pathway leading to decreased systemic NAD levels. CNDD anomalies mimic the clinical features described in vertebral-anal-cardiac-tracheoesophageal fistula-renal-limb (VACTERL) association raising the possibility that CNDD and VACTERL association possess similar underlying causes.
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