Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Intramedullary Astrocytoma Presenting As Cervical And Upper Back Pain: A Casereport, Chao-Pin Yang, Chun-Yuan Cheng, Ying-Hsuan Li

Rehabilitation Practice and Science

Intramedullary astrocytomas are rare, accounting for 3% of all central nervous system astrocytomas. Pain is the most common clinical symptom, although symptoms can vary. These tumors typically progress over a period of months to years before the diagnosis is established. An intramedullary astrocytoma and cervical intervertebral disc herniation may coexist; the early symptoms maybe similar and an intramedullary astrocytoma might go undetected and be misdiagnosed as cervical disc herniation. This paper reports a 30-year-old male who presented with cervical and upper back pain extending to the right upper limb. Initially, the diagnosis was a cervical radiculopathy. After rehabilitation, for two …