Spontaneous Spinal Intradural Haematoma in an Anticoagulated Woman

Authors

• Geetha Girithari Internal Medicine Department, Centro Hospitalar do Médio Tejo, Abrantes, Portugal
• Ines Coelho dos Santos Internal Medicine Department, Centro Hospitalar do Médio Tejo, Abrantes, Portugal
• Tiago Alves Internal Medicine Department, Centro Hospitalar do Médio Tejo, Abrantes, Portugal
• Eva Claro Internal Medicine Department, Centro Hospitalar do Médio Tejo, Abrantes, Portugalcine, Centro Hospitalar do Médio Tejo, Abrantes, Portugal.
• Marcia Kirzner Internal Medicine Department, Centro Hospitalar do Médio Tejo, Abrantes, Portugalcine, Centro Hospitalar do Médio Tejo, Abrantes, Portugal.
• Ana Massano Neurology Department, Centro Hospitalar do Médio Tejo, Abrantes, Portugal

geets19@hotmail.com

Keywords

Abstract

A 57-year-old woman, with a history of deep venous thrombosis and medicated with warfarin, presented at the hospital with acute back pain with paraplegia, headache, high blood pressure and vomiting. Imaging of the spine showed an acute intradural extramedullary haemorrhage with blood clot formation. The patient underwent surgery and received intensive post-surgical physiotherapy but remains paraplegic. Non-traumatic spinal intradural extramedullary haematoma (SIEH) is a rare neurological emergency that can result in spinal cord compression. Physicians should always consider this clinical entity as a differential diagnosis, especially in a patient presenting with acute back pain on anticoagulant therapy.