Conservative Treatment for Cervical Radiculopathy Due to Extensive Foraminal Disc Calcification in Children

Cervical intervertebral disc calcification with extreme lateral herniation in a child: T2-weighted signal intensity of the involved disc can be restored to normal

“…There was a rapid disappearance of the clinical symptoms in over 95 % of cases within a few weeks to several months [1,2,6,12]. In many cases, the resorption of calcification was complete within a few months to several years [3,4,[13][14][15]. According to the literature review of cervical IDC, the mean time of symptom resolution was 3 weeks (range 8 days to 3 months), and the mean time of calcification resorption was 11.5 months (range 3 months to 2 years), Table 1.The resorption of calcified disc may be due to the presence of some microvascular blood supply in the cartilage terminal plates and the anulus fibrosus in childhood [2,10,13,20].…”

“…Despite of several possible proposed factors such as trauma [1,4,6,15,18,19], infection [1,3,14,15], vascular nature [2,10,13,20], autoimmune disease [20], congenital anomaly [2,4,7], and metabolic diseases [2,4], the exact aetiology of IDC in children is still unclear [1][2][3][4][5][6].…”

“…In many cases, the resorption of calcification was complete within a few months to several years [3,4,[13][14][15]. According to the literature review of cervical IDC, the mean time of symptom resolution was 3 weeks (range 8 days to 3 months), and the mean time of calcification resorption was 11.5 months (range 3 months to 2 years), Table 1.The resorption of calcified disc may be due to the presence of some microvascular blood supply in the cartilage terminal plates and the anulus fibrosus in childhood [2,10,13,20]. Some previous studies and this case report have demonstrated that the resorption of herniated calcification was more rapid than that of intradiscal calcification [6,10,[13][14][15].…”

“…The initial X-ray and computed tomography (CT) appearances of IDC showed high-density masses in the intervertebral space, while T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed decreased signal intensity of the involved disc [3,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. The follow-up X-ray and CT images in most cases showed the resorption of calcification within a few months to several years [3,4,[13][14][15], but it has never been reported whether MRI signal intensity of the involved disc could be restored back to normal. In addition, IDC with posterior or anterior herniated calcification has been commonly reported in the literature [1-4, 6, 14, 17].…”

“…In addition, IDC with posterior or anterior herniated calcification has been commonly reported in the literature [1-4, 6, 14, 17]. However, IDC with extreme lateral herniated calcification is an extremely rare condition with only two reported cases in the past [10,13].…”