Investigation for pathogenesis of syringomyelia with Chiari I malformation

脊髓空洞症一直被认为是一种罕见且难以治疗的疾病。然而，最近诊断成像技术和显微外科技术的发展使我们能够以更小的侵入性和安全的方式发现并手术治疗更多的患者。脊髓空洞症的病因一直存在争议，尽管已经提出了几种发病机制。虽然我们没有脊髓空洞症与Chiari畸形相关的动物模型，但我们正在进行大鼠模型的病理分析，在该模型中，用气囊导管阻塞枕大孔和上颈椎管来模拟扁桃体突出。在扁桃体突出的大鼠中，从C5到T8节段的脊髓表现为中央管扩大。组织学检查显示室管膜细胞伸展变薄，星形细胞突起肿胀，细胞外水肿，主要位于背侧灰质和背柱内侧。这些发现有力地表明，我们的模型可以显示脊髓空洞症的早期进化变化。

Syringomyelia has been considered as a rare and difficult disease to treat. Recent development of diagnostic imageing modality and microsurgical techniques, however, enabled us to find and surgically treat more numbers of patients in a less-invasive and safe manner.Etiology of syringomyelia has been controversial, although several pathogenesis has been proposed. Although we do not have an animalmodel of syringomyelia associated with Chiari malformation, we are performing the pathological analysis in the rat model, in which tonsilar herniation was mimiced with the obstruction of foramen magnum and upper cervical spinal cannal with a balloon catheter.In those rats with tonsillar herniation, the spinal cord from the C5 to the T8 segments showed enlargement of the central canal. Histological examination revealed the stretching and thinning of the ependymal cells, swelling of the astrocytic process, and extra-cellular edema, predominantly in the dorsal gray matter and also inner portion of the dorsal column. These findings strongly suggest our model can show an early evolutionary change of syringomyelia.