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Case: Terminal Lipoma

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This was a one day old infant

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who had an abnormal skin discoloration overlying the sacrum.

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And so this patient came to screening spine ultrasound.

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Uh, we're starting at the sacrum

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where the tech has labeled the S five vertebral body,

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and we agree with that labeling because this is a square

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or rectangular shape of the S five vertebral body.

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Um, coming superiorly, uh, they've labeled this L five,

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but let's see what else we can see.

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Um, so coming superiorly, there's, uh, it's hard to tell

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where we are because there's some,

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there's a lot of abnormalities here.

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So they've labeled this the L five vertebral body,

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but there's some something abnormal going on in this

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central spinal canal.

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So if we agree with their labeling, L one, L two, L three,

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L four, L five, this will be S one.

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This, uh, conus mellis does have a nice normal triangular

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shape, but it extends to the inferior aspect

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of the L three vertebral body level.

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So we, if we agree with the labeling

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of the vertebral body levels,

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this will be the L five vertebral body,

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L four vertebral body level.

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So that means this is the L three vertebral body level.

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And although this conus mellis has a nice normal triangular

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shaped, uh, morphology, it extends beyond the mid portion

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of the L three vertebral body level.

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So this is too low,

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but there's some other abnormalities on this image.

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I want to draw your attention to.

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Number one, we're have a decreased amount

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of CSF in this central, uh, spinal canal.

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So, um, you know,

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typically they're CSF extending all the way from the, uh,

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the ventral and, uh, ventral

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and dorsal, uh, uh, central, uh, spinal canal space.

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There's this abnormal agen material at the ventral aspect

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of this spinal canal.

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Um, and I'm having a hard time seeing

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where is phylum terminality, where are nerve rootlets?

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Um, like what else is going on here?

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I think this is the phylum terminality here,

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and it looks a little bit too thick to me.

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In addition to this abnormal genic material in this, um,

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spinal canal concerning for a fat.

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This is what you, what this is what a,

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a motion degraded logic view looks like.

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So this patient moved, which, uh,

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when we went from the thoracic spine level

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to the lumbar spine level, so let's see if we repeated it.

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We did. So let's confirm the vertebral body levels.

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So we'll draw a line, uh, paralleling the sacrum,

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a line paralleling the lumbar, uh, vertebral bodies.

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And so this will be five one.

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And again, we're, we're,

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we have a low line conus mellis here, um,

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in the transverse plane.

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Let's just make sure we don't see anything else wrong in the

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paraspinal regions.

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Both of the kidneys have normal genicity.

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I don't see any hydro necrosis.

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The cord itself looks okay as we're going superior

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to inferior, but again,

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we have abnormal echogenic material here.

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It looks like it's, there's abnormal epigenic material in

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the dorsal aspect of the central, uh, spinal canal.

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Two, definitely abnormal, uh,

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genic material at the dorsal

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Aspect of this, um, central cord.

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Um, and, uh, it's important to label any areas

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of cutaneous abnormalities.

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So we can see if there's any sort

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of underlying like lesion extending from the surface

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of the skin into the central spinal canal.

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And it looks like, it looks like this is, uh, a,

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a tethered cord related to, um, that abnormal kind

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of fatty mass dorsally, so abnormal fat dorsally.

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And in the subcutaneous fat underlying the area

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of skin discoloration.

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Here it is in the transverse plane.

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We see it much better on, on these images than earlier.

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So there's, there's that abnormal epigenic, um, mass.

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So we're gonna recommend an MRI to be able

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to get more detail of what's going on, um,

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in this canal in the, uh, subcutaneous soft tissues,

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and, uh, confirm what level the cord ends at.

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So this patient later went on to MRI

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to confirm the abnormalities we saw at ultrasound.

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So on the left we have a T two non-fat saturated, uh,

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MRI of the lumbosacral junction.

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And on the right we have the corresponding T one weighted

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imaging without fat saturation.

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And this is a nice comparison at MRI to that ultrasound.

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You see this abnormal T one weighted hyperintensity, um,

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kind of follows the signal of the subcutaneous fat.

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And so this is, uh, an example

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of a closed dis di closed DYS raffic defect

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where you have a, uh, a fatty mass within the, uh, central

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canal extending from, it's hard to tell exactly

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where the cutaneous abnormality is,

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but there is some prominent subcutaneous fat in this infant.

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So let's label the levels of the lumbar spine.

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Of course, if we're gonna on a localizer image,

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include the entirety of the spine to be able

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to accurately label.

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But this looks like L five, L four,

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and this, this conus mellis terminates at the inferior

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aspect of L three, which is too low.

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So concerning for tethered cord related to this intradural,

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um, uh, fatty mass, uh, with this like, uh, kind of subtle,

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um, there's maybe some subtle extension

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of this fatty mass towards the dorsal surface of the skin.

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So, uh, abnormal spine MRI, uh,

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confirming the abnormalities we saw at spine ultrasound.

Report

Text

Faculty

Judy H. Squires, MD

Associate Professor of Radiology

UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh

Tags

Ultrasound

Spine

Pediatrics

Neuroradiology

Neonatal

Musculoskeletal (MSK)

MRI

Congenital