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We describe a case of deep cerebral venous sinus thrombosis(DCVST)that was successfully treated by oral administration of the Xa inhibitor edoxaban. A 53-year-old man was admitted to our hospital because of a headache and undifferentiated dizziness. Computed tomography(CT)demonstrated a low-density area in the bilateral thalamus and high-density lesions in the internal cerebral veins(ICVs)and vein of Galen. Magnetic resonance imaging with diffusion-weighted images detected areas of hyperintensity in the bilateral thalamus. Additionally, the inferior sagittal sinus, ICV, and vein of Galen were not detected by CT venography or cerebral angiography. We therefore diagnosed DCVST and started anticoagulation therapy with heparin(IV)and warfarin. A week after admission, lesions that showed hypointensity on T2 * images and high density on CT scans were detected in the bilateral thalamus. We thought that hemorrhagic infarction had occurred in association with DCVST, and changed the anticoagulation therapy to oral administration of edoxaban on day 9. The patient's symptoms gradually diminished, and CT venography indicated partial recanalization of the DCV from the ICV to the vein of Galen on day 72. We report our experience, and discuss the safety and usefulness of the Xa inhibitor for treating DCVST with hemorrhagic infarction.

We report a case of intraorbital varix. A 16-year-old girl showed sudden left-sided exophthalmos after vomiting. After several episodes of vomiting, she developed complete loss of vision in the left eye, followed by orbital pain, disruption of eye movement, and periorbital swelling. No change in symptoms or signs was observed after the Valsalva maneuver or jugular vein compression. Computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and angiography were inconclusive. Transcranial surgery revealed a large varix near the optic nerve. The lesion could not be completely resected because the orbital fat interfered with its complete visualization. We cauterized the lesion to reduce its volume. The patient's symptoms improved markedly after surgery and cauterization. Thus, cauterization appears to be an effective strategy to reduce the volume of an unresectable intraorbital varix.

Numerous approaches have been used to access aneurysms of the vertebral artery(VA)-posterior inferior cerebellar artery(PICA)complex for microsurgical clipping. Here, we report the case of a patient with an unruptured aneurysm of the left VA-PICA complex that was successfully treated using a contralateral suboccipital approach. Computed tomography angiography demonstrated a small saccular aneurysm arising from the lateral aspect of the left V4 segment just distal to the PICA origin. The aneurysm deviated to the right from the midline at the level of the jugular tubercle on angiographic evaluation, so we selected a contralateral suboccipital approach. The aneurysm was completely obliterated by neck clipping. After surgery, slight dysphagia and hoarseness appeared, but dysphagia disappeared within several days and hoarseness disappeared within 5 months. VA-PICA aneurysms can vary in their relationship to cranial nerves, brainstem, and bones of the skull base. Neurosurgeons should consider using a contralateral approach for certain aneurysms arising from a tortuous VA that has crossed the midline.

Patients with spinal degenerative diseases suffer not only neuropathy in the extremities but also lower urinary tract dysfunction(LUTD). Patients with cauda equina syndrome generally need emergency decompression to pelvic visceral function, especially that of the urinary bladder. However, less prominent voiding symptoms can be missed in clinical settings. There is a discrepancy between lower urinary tract symptoms and LUTD. Therefore, urodynamic studies are needed to screen of patients with spinal diseases. Cystometry and urethral sphincter electromyography are useful for increasing our understanding of LUTD but are too invasive for screening. Our protocol for the evaluation of LUTD consists of residual urine measurement and uroflowmetry(UFM). UFM is the simplest and noninvasive urodynamic technique;however, it has the disadvantage of being nonreproducible, which depends on bladder volume, diurnal variation, presence of obstructive disease, and mental stress. UFM was reportedly reproducible in normal individuals in 1979, but was not evaluated in patients with spinal disease. This study examined the reproducibility of UFM in patients with spinal disease. UFM was performed twice in 26 male patients with cervical or lumbar degenerative disease. Maximum urinary flow rate corrected with Siroky's nomogram was reproducible in 23(88.5%)of the 26 patients. A urinary flow curve was reproducible in 25(96.2%)of the 26 patients, and only 1 patient had excessive urination at the 1st UFM and normal urination at the 2nd UFM. The reproducibility of UFM was high in patients with spinal degenerative disease.

In the clinical diagnosis of lumbosacral radicular symptoms, dermatome maps are commonly used, by which the segmental location of the affected nerve can be determined. However, the diagnosis is often difficult because the pattern of sensory disturbance does not necessarily match the patterns of classical dermatomes, and there are many dermatome maps made by different methods. The author examined the area of pain and numbness in cases of lumbosacral radiculopathy. Clinical features of pain and numbness in consecutive seventy three cases of lumbosacral radiculopathy were investigated (L3: n=13, L4-S1: n=20). Patients of L3 radiculopathy showed symptoms at the upper buttock and ventral surface of the thighs, knees and upper ventral surface of the legs. Patients of L4 radiculopathy showed symptoms at the ventro-lateral surfaces of the thigh and leg. The distinctive region, defined as the region having 100% superimposition, of L4 radiculopathy was the lateral part of the shin. Patients of L5 radiculopathy showed symptoms at the lateral surfaces of the thigh and leg. The distinctive region was the upper buttock. Patients of S1 radiculopathy showed symptoms at the lower buttock, dorso-lateral part of the leg and lateral part of the foot. The distinctive region was the lateral part of the calf. It was found that the regions of pain and numbness formed a continuous band-like zone from thigh to leg in 8% of L3, 45% of L4 and L5, and 35% of S1 radiculopathy. Using a visual analogue scale, the degree of leg pain was more severe than low back pain in 68% of the patients, but in 5% of patients, low back pain was more severe.

Background and Purpose: Pseudolocalizing signs in lumbar spinal disease seems to be rarely encountered. To our knowledge, only six cases which caused L5 monoradiculopathy due to upper lumbar lesions have been described. We retrospectively reviewed patients with similar signs in our center, and we discussed the pathogenesis of such interesting neurological signs depending on our own and reported cases., Results: Between January, 2005 and August, 2010, 1,229 patients with lumbar degenerative disease underwent spinal decompression surgery, 3 of which (0.24%) presented with L5 monoradiculopathy due to upper compressive lesions in lumbar spinal disease., Discussion and Conclusion: As pathological mechanisms, 2 hypotheses are speculated: Direct compression at the epiconus level or circulatory disturbance at the nerve root itself. If the level of the conus medullaris is situated at the lower lumbar level, such as L2 level, a compressive lesion at the L1-2 level, for example lumbar disc herniation, can compress the L5 nerve root resulting in L5 nerve palsy. However, the affected level below the cauda equina doesn't seem to compress only the L5 nerve root directly, because the cauda equina is mobile enough to avoid the compression. Another speculated mechanism is the so-called circulatory disturbance. When the cauda equina is remarkably compressed at the upper level, less severe compressive change may cause selective monoradiculopathy at the lower lumbar level. Based upon the presented analyses, we adopt the circulatory mechanism in our cases as the causative factor in lumbar pseudolocalizing signs.

We report the case of a 34-year-old woman who exhibited acute deterioration in her condition after cerebral angiography for evaluation of a large meningioma. She had undergone surgery and irradiation for a glioma in the right occipital lobe 23 years before this episode. She experienced incapacity at work. On CT and MRI, a large meningioma was detected on the left frontal convexity; this tumor was thought to be radiation-induced. Cerebral angiography was performed to assess the vascularization of the tumor. Her condition began to deteriorate 2.5 h after the cerebral angiography. CT revealed an increase in the mass of the tumor, and a high density area in the tumor. We immediately removed the tumor. Histopathological examination revealed the tumor to be a meningothelial meningioma. New hemorrhagic foci were identified in the tumor. In addition, macrophages containing hemosiderin were detected, and some of the tumor vessels exhibited hyaline degeneration. We suspected that angiography triggered bleeding in the meningioma, which was already predisposed to hemorrhage.

Background: There are an increasing number of elderly patients with critical aortic stenosis. This study was performed to evaluate the surgical outcome of aortic valve surgery for elderly patients with aortic stenosis., Methods: Eleven patients aged over 75 years old (mean 79.7 +/- 4.4) underwent aortic valve replacement with stented bioprosthesis from May 2001 to August 2004. All of the patients had a history of congestive heart failure, syncope, or angina pectoris with multiple medical problems including renal dysfunction, diabetes mellitus, cerebral infarction, or coronary artery disease. The New York Heart Association (NYHA) classification ranged II to IV (mean 2.8 +/- 0.7). Their logistic Euro score ranged from 2.56 to 41.61 (mean 8.6 +/- 10.9). The concomitant procedures were annular enlargement in 2 and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in 3 patients., Results: All patients tolerated these procedures well and were discharged except 1 patient who died from arrhythmia on the postoperative day 14. Postoperative echocardiogram after 3 months showed satisfactory decrease in peak left ventricular-aortic pressure gradient as well as left ventricular mass regression. All surviving patients are in NYHA class I., Conclusions: Aortic valve replacement provided satisfactory results for elderly patients. Surgical treatment should be considered even for the elderly patients with critical aortic stenosis under meticulous perioperative management.

A 31-year-old female was clinically diagnosed as having a anterior mediastinal yolk sac tumor because of the elevation of the AFP (17,500 ng/ml), a large mass lesion (9 x 5 cm) in the anterior mediastinum and bilateral lung metastases. After 4 courses of chemotherapy with cisplatin (CDDP), etoposide (VP-16) and bleomycin hydrochloride (BLM), the mediastinal mass reduced in size significantly and the serum AFP level reached within normal range. Fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) showed a weak uptake in the mediastinum, accordingly the operation was performed. The tumor was completely removed and there were no viable foci of the tumor in part of the tumor. After the operation, 4 courses of chemotherapy with carboplatin (CBDCA), VP-16 and ifosfamide (IFM) were performed. She is alive without evidence of recurrence in 5 months after operation. It was noticed that the serum AFP is a useful indicator for determing the chance of operation after chemotherapy.

An 81-year-old woman with left medial frontal lobe hematoma, which involved the supplementary motor area, is reported. She was right-handed and was initially mute for several hours after the onset. On admission, she exhibited mild paresis of the right lower extremity. Her spontaneous speech was sparse and not fluent, but her articulation and auditory comprehension were normal and repetition was good. She exhibited excellent performance in the confrontation naming task, but showed difficulty in recalling words from a given category during the word fluency task. On the basis of these clinical features, she was diagnosed as having transcortical motor aphasia. Our case may corroborate previous findings that the left medial frontal lobe is important in word fluency but not in confrontation naming.

A 42-year-old female was referred to our vascular service because of her right arm fatigue and cold sensitivity. On elevation of right arm, her radial pulse was absent with pallor of the hand. Angiography demonstrated a significant stenosis of the right subclavian artery, which was considered to be complication of thoracic outlet syndrome. We performed resection of the first rib using the standard subclavicular approach and the subclavian-subclavian artery bypass using a new transsternal extension approach to the subclavian artery. After follow-up 18 months, she was working and asymptomatic. This transsternal extension is effective to treat the arterial complication after decompression of the thoracic outlet.

A 14-year-old female, who had intractable epilepsy associated with multiple focal cortical dysplasias (FCD), was reported. She developed intractable epilepsy at the age of 7 and was diagnosed as having frontal lobe epilepsy based on the seizure semiology and interictal EEG. MRI revealed multiple lesions in the right frontal, bilateral occipital and left parietal lobes. EEG demonstrated that ictal discharge was preceded by spike on the right frontal region and FDG-PET showed hypometabolic area in the right frontal lobe. Chronic subdural electrode recordings from the right frontal lobe indicated that ictal onset zone was located around the right frontal lesion, especially frontal tip and base, and these areas including the lesion were resected. Postoperatively, residual seizure was noted although seizure frequency was decreased. It is well known that, postoperatively, satisfactory seizure outcome can be obtained in patients with FCD. However, further investigation in terms of surgical indication and strategies for multiple FCD should be needed.

A 52-year-old woman had a history of left hearing loss for 5 years. An acoustic neurinoma with 3.2 cm in diameter was diagnosed and treated with gamma-knife radiosurgery (19 Gy of marginal dose) 1 year and 4 months ago. She developed headache, nausea, and visual disturbance 1 month prior to admission. Slight left facial palsy appeared after radiosurgery. Magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated the tumor with central necrosis in the left cerebellopontine angle cistern, increasing in size to 3.5 cm in diameter, and hydrocephalus. Tumor removal was performed incompletely, because of the fibrous appearance of the tumor and severe adherence with the surrounding cerebellar tissue. Facial palsy did not worsen after surgery. Since the hydrocephalus was not resolved, a right ventriculo-peritoneal shunt was inserted. The clinical course in this case suggests that tumor removal followed by radiosurgery was an approximately effective treatment for large acoustic neurinoma.

A 28-year old man with HCG-producing germinoma had undergone chemotherapy and radiotherapy. On admission for the fifth session of maintenance chemotherapy, he was found to be positive for hepatitis B (HB)s antigen, but negative for HBs antibody. HBs antigen had been negative during previous admissions. Since liver function was normal, the patient underwent chemotherapy. During myelosuppression after chemotherapy, liver dysfunction developed and acute HB was diagnosed. He fortunately showed seroconversion 2 months after onset. Serum immunological examinations are required for patients receiving chemotherapy.

Aortic dissection rarely occurs in 2 or more family members without Marfan's syndrome. This report describes two aged siblings who underwent emergency operations for aortic dissection. Case 1: A 71-year-old female (sister), who had Stanford type B aortic dissection, underwent replacement of the descending aorta with a Hemashield graft. Case 2: A 72-year-old male (brother of case 1), who had Stanford type A aortic dissection, underwent replacement of the ascending aorta with a UBE graft following the closure of the entry located in the proximal arch. Neither of 2 siblings nor other family members had any features of the Marfan's syndrome. It is proposed that two aortic dissections occurred coincidentally in one family without Marfan's syndrome.

A 65-year-old woman had been conservatively treated as idiopathic trigeminal neuralgia for over 25 years, because conventional computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) showed no abnormality in the cerebello-pontine(CP) angle cistern. She received a detailed MRI by constructive interference in steady state and diffusion weighted image(DWI) sequences. Those sequences on MRI well demonstrated a epidermoid tumor in the CP angle cistern, and the removal of the tumor completely resolved the neuralgia. Since a small epidermoid in the CP angle cistern seems to be unrecognized by conventional CT and MRI, detailed evaluation by DWI sequence, which has been widespread recently, is required for patients with trigeminal neuralgia.

We report a case of successful thromobolytic therapy in a patient with cerebral embolism during angiography. A 57 year-old male lost his consciousness during angiography. His neurologic symptoms were semi-comatose and right oculomotor palsy. According to these symptoms, we estimated the lesion in the right midbrain. Immediately after we denied a cerebral hemorrhage by computed tomography, we infused 60,000 u of urokinase intravenously within an hour from the onset followed by diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI). DW-MRI showed hyper-intense lesion in the midbrain. We sequentially performed thrombolytic therapy with urokinase by selective cerebral angiography within three hours from the onset. His symptoms gradually resolved, but his consciousness was still confused state. His all neurologic symptom completely resolved in the next day after hyperbaric oxygenation therapy.

The 62-year-old man was admitted to our hospital with chief complaints of chest and back pain. He was diagnosed type A acute dissecting aneurysm by chest computed tomography, and underwent urgent operation, replacement of the ascending aorta and resuspension of the aortic valve. He was recovered without any neurologic complications. However, he was complicated by paraplegia at the 4th postoperative day. We suspect that is due to early thrombotic occlusion of the false lumen where the anterior spinal arteries branch by the operation.

We studied the reliability of monitoring ESP to detect paraplegia due to spinal cord ischemia during thoracic aortic cross-clamping. In eleven patients with descending thoracic aortic aneurysm, we observed the relationship between the ESP change and postoperative paraplegia. Two patients with loss of ESP had normal postoperative neurological function but one of seven patients with low ESP amplitudes (47% of the control value) showed postoperative paraplegia with anterior spinal artery syndrome. Monitoring ESP dose not appear to be reliable to detect paraplegia during cross-clamping of the descending thoracic aorta.

A 31-year-old man was injured in an automobile accident. He was suspected to have a rupture of the thoracic aorta because the widening of mediastinum was demonstrated on a chest X-ray film. Aortography (IV-DSA) was performed to confirm the diagnosis. Prosthetic graft interposition for the rupture of the aortic isthmus was accomplished with the aid of left heart bypass using the Biomedicus Centrifugal Pump with limited systemic heparinization (0.8 mg/kg). This adjunct appears to be useful to avoid the paraplegia and to reduce the blood loss.

Four patients underwent successful early operation for post-infarction ventricular septal rupture. The periods from the onset of the rupture to operation were 19.5 hours, 13 hours, 7 hours and 8 days. In early operation, it has generally been thought that the fragility of the myocardium makes the operative technique difficult. With our experience of four cases, it was not difficult to distinguish the infarcted area from the viable one. To perform the successful early operation, it is important to suture at the viable muscle after complete excision of the infarcted muscle, and a patch for ventricular septum and when necessary, for a left ventricular free wall should be used to maintain the left ventricular volume.

Pulmonary artery banding has been a useful palliative procedure for infants with congenital cardiac anomalies associated with excessive pulmonary blood flow. We have experienced some cases that the band was not sufficient enough to reduce the pulmonary artery pressure in complex cardiac anomalies. Therefore, we developed a new adjustable pulmonary artery banding system which can be re-adjusted extrathoracically without reoperation. We used this system in seven infants with congenital cardiac lesions and obtained good results.

A case of infective endocarditis which was complicated with hemorrhagic fibrinous pericarditis was reported. The hemorrhagic fibrinous pericarditis is a rare complication of infective endocarditis of the aortic root and is observed massive hemorrhage into the pericardial space. These patients should be considered for the aortic valve replacement early in the course of the disease.

Three infants, aged 11 days, 19 days and 48 days, underwent two Jatene operations and one modified Norwood operation. The sternum was left open and the skin defect was covered with a silicon sheet in all three patients. Delayed sternal closure was impossible because of hemodynamic deterioration in all three patients. Consequently delayed midsternal wound reconstruction was applied. One rectus abdominis muscle flap was turned up and the defect between the split sternum was filled with this muscle flap. Bilateral axillary incision was made to decrease the skin tension and the midsternal wound was closed with cutaneous advancement flaps. Bilateral axillary defects were covered with mesh skin implantation. All three patients recovered after this procedure. We propose this technique for the cases in which the delayed sternal closure is impossible.

Mediastinal infection is one of serve and fatal complications after cardiac surgery, especially in the presence of an artificial graft. A case of successful treatment by using a pedicled omental flap for mediastinal infection in the presence of an external valved conduit is reported. a 10-year-old girl who had implanted the 12 mm porcine valved conduit for truncus arteriosus at age 9 months, underwent replacement of the old conduit with a 18 mm valved conduit. On the 9th postoperative day, as soon as mediastinal infection was proved by positive culture of the drainage from the chest tube, a reoperation was performed to debride and irrigate the mediastinum. Irrigation with povidone-iodine and antibiotics was continued for 3 weeks until improvement of CRP levels and negative drainage cultures. Then the heart and the valved conduit were wrapped with the pedicled omental flap and the skin was closed. She was without any evidence of infection for 3 months after operation. Use of a pedicled omental flap might be an effective method for treatment of mediastinal infection in the presence of an external conduit.