Myelomalacia, a Case Report.

Commonly, the prognosis of CSM accompanied by myelomalacia is not good, and the pathology remains to be clarifed.We report one case of myelomalacia in a 61 year old male. February 1991, he deveisped weakness of his right lower extremity and numbness of left lower extremity. Symptoms progressed slowly. July 1993, he was not able to walk without support, and had disturbed fine finger movement. Neurological examination revealed incomplete tetraplegia below C6. Preoperative MRI show an intramedually lesion in which was of low intersity on T1 images and high intersity in T2 and Gd enhanced images. We diagnosised CSM accompanied by myelomalacia, and cervical laminoplasty (C2-C6) was performed.The patient began to recover, but three months later, progressed to paresis. On MRI, the cord was swollen, and the intramedually lesion imaged by T2 was enlarged.We report progression of the degeneration of the intramedually CSM lesion accompanied by myelomalacia.