Journal of Surgical Technique and Case Report
Journal of Surgical Technique and Case Report
CASE REPORT
Year : 2012  |  Volume : 4  |  Issue : 1  |  Page : 46-49

Functional paraganglioma: a rare conus-cauda lesion


1 Department of Neurosurgery, Grant Medical College and Sir J. J. Group of Hospitals, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
2 Department of Pathology, Grant Medical College and Sir J. J. Group of Hospitals, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Correspondence Address:
Vivek Agrawal
Assistant Professor, Department of neurosurgery, Grant Medical College and Sir J. J. Group of Hospitals, Mumbai - 400 008
India
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Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None


DOI: 10.4103/2006-8808.100355

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Conus-cauda syndrome is caused due to involvement of the lower end of the spinal cord and arising bunch of nerve roots. It is caused commonly due to traumatic injury, spinal stenosis, spinal tumors, inflammatory, and infectious conditions, but paraganglioma is a rare cause. These tumors are rarely functional and secrete catecholamine. Till now only five case reports of functional spinal paragangliomas are available to the best of our knowledge. We report a 50-year-old hypertensive male patient with a lobulated lesion extending from lower border of D12 to L2, which was reported as ependymoma on imaging studies done preoperatively. This lesion was confirmed to be a functional paraganglioma postoperatively after the patient died because of its furious complication, thus highlighting the importance of its preoperative diagnosis and management. In conclusion conus-cauda functional paragangliomas are very rare entity. Diagnosing them in preoperative condition is critical from the therapeutic point of view, both medical and surgical. During surgery these tumors should be handled very gently to avoid spillage of catecholamines into blood. These tumors require assistance of expert anesthetist and endocrinologist in the perioperative period.


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