[Familial narrow spinal canal (lumbar canal stenosis with narrow cervical canal): case reports of three brothers].

We reported three brothers with lumbar canal stenosis out of six brothers. The three brothers had undergone laminectomy of the lumbar spine. Two of the three who were operated had to undergo emergency operation because of acute onset of paraplegia and micturition disturbance. At surgery we found thick and hypertrophic lamina at stenotic portion of the lumbar spine in case 1 and case 2 and pseudospondylolysthesis in case 3. These three brothers were also found to have narrow cervical canal. Two of them underwent decompressive procedure for cervical spine after lumbar surgery and the rest had already undergone anterior fusion of cervical spine at another hospital. A sister of the six brothers was also demonstrated to have narrow cervical canal. These cases suggested that there is hereditary influence on the pathogenesis of the developmental lumbar canal stenosis. We could find only two reports on familial lumbar canal stenosis in English literature. Our familial cases are considered interesting in the following points. 1) Two of three cases necessitated emergency operation and no mass lesion such as herniated disc, tumor or vascular anomaly was found at surgery. 2) All three cases had narrow cervical canal in association with lumbar canal stenosis.