Department of Veterinary Surgery and Radiology, Madras Veterinary College, Chennai-600 007 (TN)
Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, Bidar-585 401 (Karnataka)
An eight-month-old, 14-kg male German shepherd dog was referred with the clinical sign of paraplegia following a progressive hind limb ataxia and paraparesis of two months. Neurological examination suggested localisation of lesion between T3-L3 spinal cord segment. Lateral and ventrodorsal radiographic views of the thoracolumbar spine showed no abnormalities and cisternal myelography with 4 ml of 300 mg/mL of iohexol revealed a characteristic dilatation in the dorsal subarachnoid space at T12 vertebra. Surgical decompression was attempted at T12 vertebra by dorsal laminectomy and dorsal midline neurotomy. Postoperatively there was no improvement in the neurological status up to 5th week. There was gradual improvement and between 9th and 13th week improvement in ambulatory and neurological function was noticed. On the sixth month the dog had near normal gait and the long-term follow up to two years was found to be normal.
