Spinal dermal sinus and pseudo-dermal sinus tracts: two different entities

Abstract

DST constitutes a clinicopathological diagnosis. Although sharing some common cutaneous and neuroimaging findings, both groups behaved differently. Patients of group 1 tended to show up with infection requiring urgent surgery. Patients of group 2 often presented with neurological manifestations and skin lesions, but needed no immediate operation.

“Pseudo-dermal sinus tract or spinal dermal sinus-like stalk?” Reply to Drs. Cornips, Weber, Vles, and Van Aalst's Letter to the Editor

“…Dr. Pang et al report 51 instances of LDM and describe the cutaneous and intraspinal findings of this entity [4]. We think that many cases included in Dr. Pang et al's work closely resemble the tracts reported by Van Aalst and coworkers and those of our paper [2,3]. However, we would like to emphasize that we intentionally excluded from our survey saccular and lipomatous cutaneous lesions as, in our opinion, they do not correspond with the tracts we reported and do not produce much confusion at the time of differential diagnosis [2].…”

“…Dear Editor, I would like to thank Dr. Cornips et al [1] for their kind letter and valuable comments that provide an excellent summary of the findings of our work published in Child's Nervous System on the differentiation of spinal dermal-sinus tracts and a lesion that we designated as "pseudo-dermal sinus tract" [2]. We feel very much honored for their sympathetic and thoughtful comments and believe Dr. Cornips et al completely agree with the opinions and hypotheses put forward in our paper.…”

Spinal dysraphism associated with the cutaneous lumbosacral infantile hemangioma: a neuroradiological review

“…This is a particularly important finding, because sinus tracts confer a substantial risk of intraspinal infection and meningitis as well as other sequellae of underlying dysraphism. The incidence of dermal sinus tracts in newborns is estimated at 1:2,500, and the high incidence in one-third of those with spinal abnormalities emphasizes the substantial risk that cutaneous lumbosacral IH have for this structural defect [15]. The cutaneous lumbosacral IH may obscure an otherwise obvious cutaneous sign of a sinus tract, such as a dimple.…”

Missed limited dorsal myeloschisis: an unfortunate cause for recurrent tethered cord syndrome

“…Their locations in non-terminal locations in the spinal cord also served to confound the issue. They were known by a plethora of confusing terminologies as nonterminal myelocystoceles [4,5], meningocele, isolated spinal dermal sinus tract [6], pseudo-dermal sinus tract [7], spinal dermal sinus-like stalk [8,9], spina bifida cystic, et cetera. The meningoceles were repaired without looking for the fibrous glioneuronal stalk which, even when found, was considered as an aberrant nerve root and was invariably left behind.…”