Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)

Editor

Personal info

View

About

Terms

Javascript disabled

Please enable Javascript support in your browser to use this application.

Instructions on how to enable JavaScript on different browsers can be found here: http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=23852.

[edit this page]

Dudeck, O. et al.

Oliver Dudeck, Martin Zeile, Alexander Poellinger, Lothar Kluhs, Wolf-Dieter Ludwig, Bernd Hamm,

Epidural venous enlargements presenting with intractable lower back pain and sciatica in a patient with absence of the infrarenal inferior vena cava and bilateral deep venous thrombosis.

STUDY DESIGN: Case report. OBJECTIVE: To present a rare anomaly of the inferior vena cava associated with radicular pain and to illustrate its imaging characteristics. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: Irritation of the trigeminal nerve by vascular anomalies, resulting in neuralgia is a well-recognized entity. Recently, compression of peripheral nerve roots due to enlarged epidural venous plexus has been described as a possible cause of back and radicular pain, too. METHODS: A 26-year-old man presented with acute exacerbation of lower back pain associated with radiculopathy down his left thigh. On radiologic workup, a prolapse of a lumbar intervertebral disc was ruled out, but agenesis of the infrarenal segment of the inferior vena cava was found, which has caused bilateral deep venous thrombosis. Venous flow was redirected mainly via enlarged lumbar epidural, ascending lumbar, and paravertebral veins. RESULTS: No associated congenital heart or abdominal organ defects were found and screening for thrombophilia was negative. The patient was successfully treated with anticoagulation under which symptoms gradually resolved. CONCLUSION: The authors believe that epidural venous enlargements should be considered as a cause of radicular and/or back pain in patients with anomalies of the inferior vena cava, because pathologic processes compressing nervous structures can cause pain.[1]

References

Epidural venous enlargements presenting with intractable lower back pain and sciatica in a patient with absence of the infrarenal inferior vena cava and bilateral deep venous thrombosis. Dudeck, O., Zeile, M., Poellinger, A., Kluhs, L., Ludwig, W.D., Hamm, B. Spine (2007) [Pubmed]

Annotations and hyperlinks in this abstract are from individual authors of WikiGenes or automatically generated by the WikiGenes Data Mining Engine. The abstract is from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.About WikiGenes Open Access Licence Privacy Policy Terms of Use apsburg

The world's first wiki where authorship really matters (Nature Genetics, 2008). Due credit and reputation for authors. Imagine a global collaborative knowledge base for original thoughts. Search thousands of articles and collaborate with scientists around the globe.