A cervical anterior spinal artery syndrome after diagnostic blockade of the right C6-nerve root

Received 1 February 2000; received in revised form 14 September 2000; accepted 20 September 2000.

Abstract

A 48-year-old man suffered from intractable neck pain irradiating to his right arm. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the cervical spine was unremarkable. A right-sided diagnostic C6-nerve root blockade was performed. Immediately following this seemingly uneventful procedure he developed a MRI-proven fatal cervical spinal cord infarction. We describe the blood supply of the cervical spinal cord and suggest that this infarction resulted from an impaired perfusion of the major feeding anterior radicular artery of the spinal cord, after local injection of iotrolan, bupivacaine, and triamcinolon-hexacetonide around the C6-nerve root on the right side.

Keywords: Infarction, Spinal cord, Nerve root blockade, Magnetic resonance imaging

a Department of Neurology, Medisch Spectrum Twente, P.O. Box 50.000, 7500 KA Enschede, The Netherlands

b Department of Anaesthesiology, Medisch Spectrum Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

c Department of Neuroradiology, Medisch Spectrum Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

Corresponding author. Tel.: +31-53-4872000; fax: +31-53-4872882

PII: S0304-3959(00)00437-1

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