IDHs are rare clinical diagnoses that typically occur in patients aged in their fifties
11). Dandy
4) first reported an intradural lumbar disc herniation in 1942 and the incidence of IDHs is reported between 0.04 and 0.33% of all reported lumbar disc herniations
9). The most common site of intradural lumbar disc herniations is the L4-5 (55%) area, followed by L3-4 (16%), and L5-S1 (10%), far fewer occur at L1-2 and L2-3
11,13,15). Furthermore, traumatic IDHs are rarer events and the incidence rate has not yet been reported in the literature. Most traumatic disc herniations in the lumbar spine frequently have severe bony injuries such as fractures and dislocations
8). In our case, however, we found an IDH after a traumatic event without fractures or dislocations.
Although the mechanisms that cause disc herniations to pass the dura mater are unclear, the widely accepted hypothesis states that adhesion between the ventral dura and posterior-longitudinal ligament (PLL) leads to the successive perforation of these firmly adhesive tissues, including the annulus fibrosus, due to the increased intradiscal pressure
1,4,9,10). Dandy
4) explained that sudden pressure on the protruded disc might erode and then penetrate the overlying ventral dura. Other reports have suggested that dense adhesion, whether it is congenital or acquired, fixate the dural sac
1,14).
Diagnosing an IDH is difficult due to its rarity. Diagnosis using radiological images is a difficult task, because lumbar IDHs can have various radiological and clinical features
3,17). Furthermore, lesions may be ignored in simple radiography and CT scans, which are one of the most frequently used radiologic examinations in the diagnosis of spinal injuries. Several radiologic findings that suggest the presence of IDHs have been reported. Hidalgo-Ovejero et al.
6) reported that the presence of epidural gas in a CT scan could be a clue of the presence of an IDH. In our case, however, we could not find epidural gas on the CT scan. Since Wasserstrom et al.
18) made the first IDH diagnosis using a gadolinium-enhanced MRI in 1993, the rim enhancement of herniated discs has been accepted as a typical MRI finding in IDHs. Furthermore, Choi et al.
2) presented the loss of PLL continuity and a sharp beak-like feature on a T2-weighted image as indicators of IDH. In our case, we also observed a peripheral rim enhancement pattern on the gadolinium-enhance T1 MRI, but it was not enough to consider the IDHs due to the small size of portion (
Fig. 3C). Moreover, the loss of PLL continuity was not definite on our initial lumbar spine MRI. Therefore, our initial impression of the intradural mass at L1 was a spinal SDH, although a traumatic spinal SDH is also very rare
12). On MRI, the spinal SDH yielded high signals on both T1 and T2, but the signal intensity of the spinal SDH on the MRI also depend on the duration
7). In our case, the intradural lesion exhibited high signal-intensity on the T2 scan (
Fig. 3A, B) and an isosignal on the T1 scan. On the GRE scan, however, the intradural lesion had a high signal-intensity with a low signal void inside the intradural lesion (
Fig. 3D), thus we assumed it was a spinal SDH. An intradural abscess could be considered as another differential diagnosis, but we excluded it because there were no signs of infection such as fever or leukocytosis.
Additionally, the patient had visited our hospital six weeks previously for radiating pain in his right lower leg. At that time, the patient checked a lumbar MRI scan, and was diagnosed with a diffuse bulging disc in L4-5 and there was no intradural mass lesion. Compared with the MRI from that visit, de-novo intradural lesion was detected. Moreover, the height and the signal intensity of the intervertebral disc of L1-2 had decreased in the recent study (
Figs. 1A and
3A). We assumed that a strong vertical pressure had been applied to cause the intervertebral disc rupture, then the ruptured particles penetrated the PLL, ventral dura, and through dorsal dura to the epidural space. According to the clues mentioned above, we could assume that the IDH developed from a trauma rather than a degenerative condition.