Abstract
Spontaneous spinal epidural hematomas are uncommon and are especially rare when the lesion involves more than 8 vertebral segments. We report a rare case of spontaneous spinal epidural hematoma extended to 14 vertebral segments, and discuss treatment with a review of the literature. A 78 year-old-woman was presented with sudden onset of paraplegia and severe back pain. Emergent spinal MRI showed that an epidural hematoma extended from C7 to L1. The hematoma was evacuated immediately through T9-T11 laminectomy followed by epidural drainage. Her symptom recovered rapidly, and MRI at 5 days after the operation showed the complete disappearance of residual hematoma. We suppose that localized laminectomy and epidural drainage following an early diagnosis are effective for long extended spinal epidural hematomas.
