Spinal intramedullary lipoma: report of three cases

STUDY DESIGN: Case report. OBJECTIVE: To report three cases of spinal intramedullary lipoma seen in the last 10 years and present the clinical characteristics and surgical outcome of these cases. METHOD: Two patients were boys aged 12 years and 7 months, respectively. The other was a female patient aged 6 months. Chief complaints were hemiparesis, back swelling and thoracic scoliosis. All patients were diagnosed with magnetic resonance images. The lesion was located in the cervico-thoracic spine (foramen magnum to T1) in one case, thoracic spine (T9-T12) with the back swelling at L2-4 level in the second, and in the third, one mass extended from C6 to T11 and the other mass was located in the L1-2 level, separately. RESULT: All masses were removed subtotally and dysraphism was absent. Postoperatively, neurological status of the first and the second patient were unchanged, but in the third case weakness was transiently aggravated. CONCLUSION: Intramedullary lipoma is a rare spinal lesion and multiple intramedullary lipoma is extremely rare. Treatment principle is surgical decompression before symptom progression. Laminoplastic laminotomy is an appropriate approach for decompression of an intramedullary lipoma.