Contralateral referred pain in a patient with intramedullary spinal cord metastasis from extraskeletal small cell osteosarcoma

Abstract

Context

Referred pain has been observed in some patients after cordotomy, wherein noxious stimulus applied to a region rendered analgesic by cordotomy produces pain at a spot different from the one where the noxious stimulus is applied. We report a patient who had intramedullary spinal cord metastasis of extraskeletal small cell osteosarcoma, a rare form of metastatic disease, and experienced contralateral referred pain.

Findings

Initially, the patient had a mass in the left posterior neck region and later developed a large extradural mass at the C3–C7 level. The masses were excised, and the histological findings led to a diagnosis of small cell osteosarcoma. He underwent chemotherapy and radiation therapy. He experienced numbness in his left leg; subsequently, the numbness slowly spread up the thigh to the left side of the abdomen. When pinched in the numb area on the left side of the body, he felt as though he had been pinched in both that area and the corresponding area on the right side. A magnetic resonance imaging scan showed an enhancing lesion in the right side of the cord at the C6–C7 level.

Conclusion/clinical relevance

An intramedullary spinal cord metastasis can arise from primary extraskeletal small cell osteosarcoma and cause contralateral referred pain, especially in a mirror-image location. Contralateral referred pain may be caused by a subsidiary pathway comprising ascending chains of short neurons that link the dorsal horn neurons longitudinally and latitudinally.

Keywords:

• Cervical vertebrae
• Neoplastic metastasis
• Osteosarcoma
• Referred pain
• Spinal cord neoplasms
• Intramedullary cordotomy

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a grant of the Korea Healthcare Technology R&D Project, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea (A102065).