Objective: To describe the imaging findings of a patient with spontaneous resolution of syringomyelia.
Clinical Features: Serial imaging of a 33-year-old male patient was submitted to a chiropractic radiologist for review. The patient experienced a traumatic head incident in 2013 from an occupational motor vehicle accident that resulted in loss of consciousness. His symptoms included pain at the occiput, severe nonspecific headaches, pain behind the eyes, neck pain, and dizziness. He denied any neurologic symptoms in the extremities. He visited an emergency room and was sent home after receiving CT of his brain and cervical spine, which were seen as normal.
Intervention and Outcomes: The patient received conservative care for many years with little improvement. In 2016, an MRI was conducted and showed syringomyelia at C5-C7. In 2019, a subsequent MRI was performed which revealed no significant change of the syringomyelia. In 2021, the patient noticed an improvement in the frequency and intensity of his symptoms and sought another round of MR imaging, which revealed a complete spontaneous resolution of the syringomyelia.
Conclusions: Spontaneous resolution of syringomyelia is an uncommon event. It has only been documented in the literature approximately 39 times, and of those, only one-third of cases describe complete regression. This report describes complete resolution of syringomyelia without known cause.
Author keywords: Chiropractic; Syringomyelia; Computed Tomography
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