Bilateral Symptomatic Intraspinal T12-L1 Synovial Cysts

A 72-year-old man presented with several months of increasing lumbar pain, sciatica, lower extremity weakness, numbness in his buttocks and posterior thighs, burning sensations in his scrotum, and urinary incontinence. Myelogram-computed tomography scan demonstrated a high grade incomplete block at the T12-L1 level due to bilateral synovial cysts and simultaneously a high grade partial block at L4-L5 due to spinal stenosis. Laminectomy of the T-12 vertebra and partial laminectomy of the L-1 vertebra with excision of both synovial cysts and laminectomies of the L-4 and L-5 vertebrae with foraminotomies resulted in a reversal of the patient's symptomatology.