An unusual case of two spinal level diastematomyelia with cord tethering

Abstract

Diastematomyelia at two spinal levels is a rare disease. And also, a dorsal and lumbosacral spur along with cord tethering and spina bifida has been rarely reported in the literature. Diastematomyelia is a rare congenital anomaly that results in the “splitting” of the spinal cord in a longitudinal direction. It occurs in the presence of an osseous (bone), cartilaginous, or fibrous septum in the central portion of the spinal cord which then produces a complete or incomplete sagittal division of the spinal cord into two hemicords. When the split does not reunite distally to the spur, the condition is referred to as a diplomyelia, or true duplication of the spinal cord. In this study, we will report a 16 months’ old girl who was diagnosed with spina bifida during her intrauterine life and underwent division of bony spur at D10 to D11 and L4 to L5 and detethering of cord with intra-operative monitoring on day at 1 year and 6 months’ of age.