Spondylolysis of the Cervical Spine (Case Report)

Cervical spondylolysis is a fairly rare clinical phenomenon that is mostly asymptomatic. The article describes a case of detection of bilateral cortical defects of pars interarticularis at the level of the CVI vertebra. Methods of computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging were used for a comprehensive assessment of morphological changes.

Circumferential intradural meningioma of the thoracic spine: Case report and literature review

Background: Meningiomas are common intradural extramedullary spinal tumors with a predilection for the thoracic spine. They are mostly benign (90%), with only a few showing malignant potential. However, circumferential intradural meningiomas surrounding the spinal cord are exceptionally rare. Here, we present a 40-year-old patient with a T6-T7 circumferential lesion who underwent surgery. In addition, we reviewed three similar cases previously reported in the literature. Case Description: A 40-year-old female presented with paraparesis. Imaging demonstrated a T6-T7 thoracic circumferential intradural lesion, considered to most likely be a meningioma. At surgery, the posterolateral portion of the tumor was removed, but there was residual ventral disease. The tumor recurred several years later, and was again partially removed, now leaving her with a residual neurological deficit. Three similar cases of circumferential meningiomas, one cervical and two thoracic, were reported from the literature. Conclusion: Circumferential meningiomas pose unique and significant surgical challenges, particularly since resection of the posterolateral components is feasible, but some tumor may have to be left ventrally to avoid injury to the anterior spinal artery, that may recur.

Rerooting Multi-type Branching Trees: The Infinite Spine Case

We prove local convergence results for rerooted conditioned multi-type Galton–Watson trees. The limit objects are multitype variants of the random sin-tree constructed by Aldous (1991), and differ according to which types recur infinitely often along the backwards growing spine.