Cardiology in the Young

Table of Contents - July 2000 - Volume 10, Issue 04  

Brief Reports

Neuropathic pain syndrome as an occult manifestation of injury of the spinal cord after surgical repair of aortic coarctation

Luc M Beauchesnea1, Angela Mailisa2 and Gary D Webba3 c1

a1 Division of Cardiology, University of Ottawa; Canada

a2 Comprehensive Pain Program and Division of Physical Medicine, Toronto Western Hospital and University of Toronto, Canada

a3 Toronto Congenital Cardiac Centre for Adults, Toronto General Hospital, University of Toronto, Canada

Abstract

Injury to the spinal cord injury with paraplegia, is a rare complication of surgical repair of aortic coarctation recognized immediately post-operatively. We present the case of a 41-year-old male undergoing surgery for restenosis at the site of a repair. Intra-operatively, he suffered inadvertent injury to an intercostal arterial branch during isolation of the aorta below the graft. Over the following months, he developed unusual symptoms involving the legs and genitourinary tract which, only after extensive investigations, were attributed to ischemic damage to the spinal cord related to the surgery. We suspect that similar syndromes reflecting injury to the spinal cord injury may be unrecognized following surgical repair of coarctation.

(Accepted March 29 2000)

Keywords

Correspondence:

c1 Gary D Webb, Toronto Congenital Cardiac Center for Adults, Toronto General Hospital, 200 Elizabeth Street, Toronto, Ontario M5G 2C4, Canada. Tel: 416–340–4752; Fax: 416–340–5014; Email: Gary.Webb@uhn.on.ca

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