title: Acute transverse myelitis after thoracic epidural anesthesia and analgesia: should anesthesia and analgesia be blamed?
abstract: A 63-year-old man developed acute transverse myelitis (ATM) with a rapid progression of sensory and motor deficits and autonomic dysfunction 2 days after chest surgery. Thoracic epidural anesthesia/analgesia (TEA) had been administered in this case. Since the temporal and spatial relationships between TEA and ATM are so close, one may easily mistake the TEA as the cause. Therefore, we discuss here the differential diagnoses for cord damage after TEA and the characteristics of ATM, and suggest that it is unlikely that TEA is the cause of ATM in this case.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, National Taiwan University Hospital Hsin-Chu Branch, Hsin-Chu City, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Ming-Che
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Hsu
authors.forename: Ming-Hui
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Hung
authors.forename: Jin-Shing
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ya-Jung
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Cheng
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D015360:Analgesia, Epidural / Q000009:adverse effects*; D000767:Anesthesia, Epidural / Q000009:adverse effects*; D019054:Evoked Potentials, Motor; D005073:Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009188:Myelitis, Transverse / Q000209:etiology*