title: A posttraumatic pontomedullary rent with good outcome.
abstract: Posttraumatic pontomedullary rents have been described mainly as postmortem histopathological findings in patients who died immediately or within the first hours after trauma. To the best of our knowledge, no long-term survivors of this condition have been described, and those surviving initially were always severely impaired. We present the first patient with this condition and with corresponding lesions on imaging who survived longer than 3 months. Moreover, the patient regained almost complete independence 1 year after the trauma. We briefly discuss the proposed mechanisms of this injury. We conclude that this lesion, when incomplete, is not always lethal and can exceptionally have a good clinical outcome. Prevention of respiratory failure is of utmost importance in these patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospitals Leuven, Herestraat 49, 3000, Leuven, Belgium. philippe.devloo@uzleuven.be.|Research group Experimental Neurosurgery and Neuroanatomy, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. philippe.devloo@uzleuven.be.
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: De Vloo
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospitals Leuven, Herestraat 49, 3000, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Louis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Declerck
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Stevens
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospitals Leuven, Herestraat 49, 3000, Leuven, Belgium.|Research group Experimental Neurosurgery and Neuroanatomy, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: De Vleeschouwer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008526:Medulla Oblongata / Q000293:injuries* / Q000601:surgery; D011149:Pons / Q000293:injuries* / Q000601:surgery
keywords: Locked-in syndrome; Pontomedullary contusion; Pontomedullary rent; Pontomedullary tear; Posttraumatic brainstem lesion