Article

A couple of the most common complications after anterior cervical spine surgery
are dysphagia and hoarseness. This is often related to recurrent laryngeal nerve
palsy and it can also be caused by injury to the branches of the lower cranial
nerves. In general, Tapia syndrome is combined injuries of the recurrent
laryngeal nerve of the vagus and the hypoglossal nerves. There has been no
reported case until now of Tapia syndrome after a patient underwent anterior
cervical spine surgery. We present here the case of a 42-yr-old man who
complained of hoarseness, dysphagia, and right deviation of the tongue with an
atrophic change for 2 mos after he underwent C3-4 discectomy and anterior fusion
body. We found that he has a diagnosis of a variant of Tapia syndrome, although
recurrent laryngeal nerve injury did not seem to be involved according to a
videofluoroscopic swallowing study and electromyography. Our case report
demonstrates that the combined diagnostic tools of videofluoroscopic swallowing
study, electromyography, and laryngoscopy can be very useful in localizing and
evaluating the level of lesions in patients with Tapia syndrome.

Langue : ANGLAIS