BMJ Case Reports: first published as 10.1136/bcr-2013-201708 on 29 October 2013. Downloaded from Images in… Dissociated sensory loss and muscle wasting in a young male with headaches: syringomyelia with type 1 Arnold-Chiari malformation Mueez Waqar,1 Anjum Habib Vohra2 1School of Medicine, University DESCRIPTION cavitation, with accompanying descent of the cere- of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK A 21-year-old right-handed man, with no medical bellar tonsils (figure 1). Syringomyelia with type 1 2Lahore General Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan history of note, presented to neurosurgery out- Arnold-Chiari malformation was diagnosed and the patient department in Pakistan, with a 5-year history patient was offered decompressive surgery. Correspondence to of numbness and pain in his upper limbs. The Syringomyelia results from the development of Mueez Waqar, patient gave a troubled account of constant, current- a syrinx within the spinal cord, most commonly
[email protected] like pain, tracking down his arms and sometimes in the cervical segment. It is frequently associated over his chest, which frequently disturbed his sleep. with a type 1 Chiari malformation of the spine, The numbness he experienced made it difficult to in which the cerebellar tonsils descend below the turn pages of the newspaper. Upon further question- foramen magnum. The exact length of descent ing, he also admitted to suffering with occipital for diagnosis is controversial, as up to a third of headaches for a number of years. Examination of normal participants may harbour this finding,1 the upper limbs revealed wasting of the thenar and though >5 mm is considered pathological.2 In hypothenar eminences of the left hand and loss of the presence of a Chiari-malformation, first-line pain and temperature sensation in the C3-T2 derma- management is usually posterior fossa decompres- tomes, bilaterally.