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1. Direct Cautery
2. Ruptured disc |
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Direct Cautery
These images are from a 2 week old goat kid that was recently dehorned. The kid developed listlessness in the evening and was found dead the next morning. Grossly, there were bilateral areas of full thickness cautery of the skull, subtended by hemorrhages in the dorsal portions of the frontal lobes, more severe in the right cerebral hemisphere. In histologic section, the neuropil is pale and hemorrhagic directly beneath the burned skull, there is a dense neutrophilic inflammatory infiltrate within the meninges surrounding these areas.
Ruptured intervertebral disc and spinal cord compression.
The spinal cord is particularly vulnerable to compression by vertebral injuries such as fractures or displacements. A common traumatic injury to the spinal cord of dogs and humans is due to prolapse or rupture of intervertebral discs, which cause lesions ranging from mild axonal degeneration to frank hemorrhagic necrosis and malacia.
Hemorrhagic necrosis in the spinal cord is sometimes propagated, both anteriorly and caudally, far from the initial site of injury and may result in death from respiratory paralysis when the process reaches the caudal cervical spinal cord where the phrenic nerve arises. This condition is sometimes referred to as “ascending hematomyelia”
Below are images from the spinal cord of a 12 year old Dachshund with a 1 week history of acute hind limb paralysis. There was little improvement with cage rest, neurologic exam localized the lesion to the lumbar spinal cord, and euthanasia was elected without further clinical work-up. Postmortem examination of the cord revealed an acute rupture of the intervertebral disk at L1-2, with extrusion of fibrocartilage from the nucleus pulposus into the spinal canal where the spinal cord became compressed. The lesions within the cord are typical of blunt trauma. Fragments of degenerating fibrocartilage are adherent to the dura in one or two of the sections, and there is an associated inflammatory response in the epidural space. Sub-gross and closer images below show extruded fibrocartilage and blood adherent to the dura of the spinal cord. A closer magnification of the white matter shows vacuolation (dilated myelin sheaths) with axonal spheroids and hemorrhage.
Hemorrhagic necrosis in the spinal cord is sometimes propagated, both anteriorly and caudally, far from the initial site of injury and may result in death from respiratory paralysis when the process reaches the caudal cervical spinal cord where the phrenic nerve arises. This condition is sometimes referred to as “ascending hematomyelia”
Below are images from the spinal cord of a 12 year old Dachshund with a 1 week history of acute hind limb paralysis. There was little improvement with cage rest, neurologic exam localized the lesion to the lumbar spinal cord, and euthanasia was elected without further clinical work-up. Postmortem examination of the cord revealed an acute rupture of the intervertebral disk at L1-2, with extrusion of fibrocartilage from the nucleus pulposus into the spinal canal where the spinal cord became compressed. The lesions within the cord are typical of blunt trauma. Fragments of degenerating fibrocartilage are adherent to the dura in one or two of the sections, and there is an associated inflammatory response in the epidural space. Sub-gross and closer images below show extruded fibrocartilage and blood adherent to the dura of the spinal cord. A closer magnification of the white matter shows vacuolation (dilated myelin sheaths) with axonal spheroids and hemorrhage.
