Thoracic spinal iophendylate-induced arachnoiditis mimicking an intramedullary spinal cord neoplasm. Case report

Steven W Hwang1, Rafeeque A Bhadelia, Julian Wu

  • 1Department of Neurosurgery, Division of Neuroradiology, Tufts-New England Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts 02111, USA. shwang@tufts-nemc.org

Iophendylate (Pantopaque or Myodil) was commonly used from the 1940s until the late 1980s for myelography, cisternography, and ventriculography. Although such instances are rare, several different long-term sequelae have been described in the literature and associated with intrathecal iophendylate. The authors describe an unusual case of arachnoiditis caused by residual thoracic iophendylate imitating an expansile intramedullary lesion on magnetic resonance images obtained 30 years after the initial myelographic injection.

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