Primary intramedullary spinal cord tumour in pregnancy: a case report

Primary spinal cord tumours can lead to severe neurological complications and even death. Pregnant women often complain of discomfort of the lower limbs, which is usually caused by sciatica. Here we present the case of a pregnant woman, who was initially considered to have sciatica, but was finally diagnosed with a primary intramedullary spinal cord tumour.

A 28-year-old pregnant woman presented to our hospital with inexplicable numbness in her lower limbs. She was initially considered to have sciatica, but acute deterioration of neurological symptoms and plain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings suggested malignancy. The patient was finally diagnosed with a primary intramedullary spinal cord tumour at the C3-Th5 region. An emergency caesarean section was performed, after which the spinal cord lesion was evaluated using contrast-enhanced MRI, positron emission tomography with 2-deoxy-2-[fluorine-18] fluoro-d-glucose integrated with computed tomography, and spinal angiography, and further treatment was initiated. However, while the patient's spinal cord tumour surgery was performed in early postpartum, her paraplegia and bladder and rectal disturbances remained unchanged even 1 year after surgery.

Because of the low incidence of spinal cord tumours during pregnancy, no definite reports have been published on the treatment of pregnant patients with spinal cord tumours. Although safe imaging tests during pregnancy are limited, intervention in such patients should be performed as early as possible to avoid irreversible neurological deterioration.