Spinal cord infarction in a patient with sickle cell anemia

The most common serious neurologic complication of sickle cell anemia is occlusive vascular disease with central nervous system infarction. The parenchymal lesions are most often located in the brain, chiefly within major cerebral arterial boundary zones. Spinal cord infarction is extremely rare. We report a patient with sickle cell anemia who developed an acute cervical myelopathy. At autopsy, there was a spinal cord infarction with extensive involvement of the rostral cervical segments. Recanalized thrombi were present in the right vertebral artery and smaller subarachnoid arterioles adjacent to the infarcted cord. This is the first report of autopsy-confirmed spinal cord infarction associated with sickle cell anemia.