Spinal epidural angiolipoma complicated by an intratumoral abscess. Case report

Spinal angiolipomas are rare, benign lesions representing 0.14 to 1.2% of all spinal axis tumors. They most commonly involve the midthoracic spine and are located in the posterior epidural space. Up to now, six pediatric cases have been reported in the literature; two of them involved an acute clinical onset that was related to a venous infarction of a tumor. The authors report the case of a 16-year-old boy with a midthoracic epidural angiolipoma who was admitted with a clinical history of an acute paraparesis. In contrast to previous descriptions, the acute onset in this case was related to a spontaneous intratumoral abscess within the tumor.