[Acute paraplegia due to embolism from nucleus pulposus tissue (author's transl)].

Typical anterior spinal artery syndrome with initially severe pain and paraplegia with sensory disturbances occurred after a fall in a 36-year-old man with a history of lumbago. Multiple emboli of fibrocartilaginous material with nucleus pulposus cells were found in the foci of myelomalacia. The embolism of nucleus pulposus tissue originating from Schmorl's nodules was probably carried via the blood vessels of the neighbouring vertebral bodies with retrograde flow through the perispinal venous plexus into spinal cord veins and hence into the arteries of the spinal cord via veno-arterial anastomoses. A transitory increase in intra-abdominal pressure was probably the cause of the inversion of venous flow.