Delayed paraplegia following spinal anaesthesia

Abstract

We report an extremely rare complication of regional anaesthesia, a spinal subdural haematoma, which resulted in permanent neurological damage occurring 8 days after dural puncture at T12-L1. Although spinal subdural haematoma following spinal anaesthesia and lumbar puncture has been described before, this is the first report of this complication occurring after dural puncture using a 25 G atraumatic pencil point (Whitacre) needle. Contributory factors might have been the perioperative intermittent low dose aspirin therapy and the fact that spinal anaesthesia was performed at the T12-L1 level.