How to identify inflammatory demyelinating pseudotumor in the spinal cord?

November 4th, 2013

This is an enhanced transverse showed open-ring sign in a female 33-year-old patient with spinal cord tumor-like inflammatory demyelinating disease misdiagnosed as astrocytoma, who complained of lower extremity weakness for half a year. Credit: Neural Regeneration Research

Inflammatory demyelinating pseudotumor usually occurs in the brain and rarely occurs in the spinal cord. On imaging, inflammatory demyelinating pseudotumor appears very similar to intramedullary tumors such as gliomas. It is often misdiagnosed as intramedullary tumor and surgically resected. In view of this, the clinical and magnetic resonance imaging manifestations and the pathological features of 36 cases of inflammatory demyelinating pseudotumor in the spinal cord were retrospectively analyzed and summarized by Ying Wang and colleagues from Department of Neurology, Yantai Shan Hospital, China. They found that tumor-like inflammatory demyelinating disease in the spinal cord is a kind of special demyelinating disease that can be categorized as inflammatory pseudotumor. These solitary lesions are easily confused with intramedullary neoplasms. Patchy or non-closed reinforcement (open-ring sign) on magnetic resonance imaging is the predominant property of inflammatory demyelinating pseudotumor, and inflammatory cell infiltration and demyelination are additional pathological properties.

This study, published in the Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 8, No. 26, 2013), summarizes the clinical and imaging properties of inflammatory demyelinating pseudotumor in the spinal cord, aiming to decrease the misdiagnosis rate in the clinic and improve patients' quality of life.

More information:
Wang Y, Wang M, Liang H, Yu QT, Yan ZH, Kong M. Imaging and clinical properties of inflammatory demyelinating pseudotumor in the spinal cord. Neural Regen Res. 2013;8(26):2484-2494.

Provided by Neural Regeneration Research