J Korean Soc Emerg Med.  2011 Oct;22(5):588-590.

Spinal Schwannoma in a Patient with Chronic Right Flank Pain Presenting at an Emergency Department

• Min JH
• Kim H
• Lee SW
• Ha MS
• Han KH
• Park JS

Abstract

Many patients with flank pain present to an emergency department (ED). The differential diagnosis of flank pain is difficult, especially in the case of women. Spinal schwannoma (SS) is one of the most common intraduralextramedullary spinal tumors. SS can present as symmetrical pain in the back or pain that radiates to both the lower extremities, which is commonly observed in clinical practice. We report the case of a 47-year-old woman with pain in her right flank area that began 2 months before she presented to our ED. Abdominal contrast computed tomography was performed to identify an intra-abdominal cause for the pain. Incidentally, we found a schwannoma, a spinal cord tumor, at the 10th thoracic vertebrae level. The pain disappeared after the tumor was surgically resected. On the basis of our findings, we conclude that the pain in her right flank pain area was caused by the SS.

Keyword

Flank pain; Spinal tumor; Spinal schwannoma

MeSH Terms

Diagnosis, Differential
Emergencies
Female
Flank Pain
Humans
Lower Extremity
Middle Aged
Neurilemmoma
Spinal Cord Neoplasms
Thoracic Vertebrae