Chronic progressive hematomyelia - Case reports and review of the literature

BACKGROUND Hematomyelia usually has an acute onset and rapid progression, w hich results in a poor prognosis. However, there have been a few cases in w hich the clinical symptoms have progressed chronically, with a good prognos is. These two different clinical courses should be analyzed separately. The differential diagnosis of spinal tumor and other chronic progressive disea ses due to the similarity of the clinical courses is also important. CASE DESCRIPTION Two cases of hematomyelia with slowly progressive symptoms are reported. Unlike the acute onset and rapid progression or recurrent ep isodic deterioration usually seen in hematomyelia, the symptoms of chronic hematomyelia progressed over months and resulted in a better clinical progn osis than the acute course. The cases of "chronic progressive hematomyelia" from the literature are briefly summarized. CONCLUSIONS Chronic progressive hematomyeIia should be considered as a diff erent clinical entity from the acute version because of its slowly progress ive clinical course and good outcome. Magnetic resonance imaging is the pro cedure of choice to exclude spinal tumors or other slowly progressive intra spinal diseases. (C) 1999 by Elsevier Science Inc.