Abstract
Occult spinal dysraphism (OSD), recognized as a twin word for cystic spinal dysraphism, is uncommon to general neurosurgeons.
It is a big problem that OSD is apt to be overlooked, because the most cases might have only tiny signs of cutaneous stigmata in the lumbosacral region with insidious worse of the neurological symptoms.
Moreover, the entity of OSD is complicated that it is strictly classified into many divisions ; spinal lipoma, congenital dermal sinus, thickened filum terminale, terminal myelocystocele, diastematomyelia, and so on. Therefore, the proper time and method for the treatment differs in each malformation.
To study the mechanisms and differences among those embryonic malformations is a valuable clue in interpreting the structural malformation on the graphical images, understanding the neurological symptoms with combined anomalies in other organs, and also learning the important keys of surgical treatment.
In this paper, I have demonstrated the representative cases of OSD operated in our hospital in the classified order, and argued on what kind of cutaneous stigmata should be suspected of OSD and how we should deal with the lesion along with some discussion and review of literature.
