Angelo Di Salvo. Idiopathic Scoliosis. Cord Traction Syndrome. Descent of the cerebellar tonsils (DCT).

Published by ICSEB at 17 October, 2013

Surgery date: September 2012

Hello, my name is Angelo Di Salvo, I am 16 years old and live in Catania.

More or less one and a half years ago, following different clinical tests and a sudden increase of my scoliosis, I was diagnosed with Arnold Chiari I.

Since I was little I always suffered from headaches and speech delay and I was being treated in the neuropsychiatric centre of my town, but none of the doctors diagnosed this syndrome.

Luckily I found an excellent and scrupulous physiatrist who ordered a magnetic resonance of the head due to which the descent of the cerebellar tonsils was detected.

After consulting with different neurologists in Italy, with results that were not satisfying and the treatment options were not comforting, my parents started to search the Internet, they found the Institut Chiari de Barcelona and they realized that this was the convenient way to go.

They contacted the very kind Mrs. Luè , sent the diagnostic tests that they had been asked for and the medical team diagnosed a cord traction syndrome, Arnold Chiari I syndrome, idiopathic scoliosis once they studied the material and to be confirmed with an appointment at the Institut Chiari.

We made an appointment for 12 September 2012 at the Institut Chiari, following a scrupulous examination that confirmed the need for the surgery of the Sectioning of the Filum terminale. I went into the surgery room at 8 o’clock on 13 September. Atd 14:00 hours I got up and was already able to walk. I was discharged the next day and returned to Italy, everything went very well.

The first follow up six months later it could be observed that the cerebellar tonsils had not worsened, the scoliosis was stable, and the syndrome had been blocked.

One year after the surgery, after a lot of physiotherapy, a lot of swimming and good will we started to see results with my scoliosis.

I will never get tired of thanking and praising Dr. Royo, a person with exceptional human virtues, his collaborators, Dr. Marco Fiallos Rivera, Dr. Mendez and Mrs. Gioia Lue and all the other collaborators at the Institut Chiari.

Thanks to them I can look into a clearer and more unruffled future.

Angelo Di salvo

Email: [email protected]

12/09/2012

06/09/2013