Clinical and Histopathological Findings of Hemorrhagic Progressive Myelomalacia after Lumbar Tap in 2 Dogs: Case Report

Bichon frise (1) and Boxer (2), both with epileptic seizures, underwent lumbar taps for cerebrospinal fluid collection. After the procedure, the first dog became paraplegic, and the second dog did not recover from anesthesia and remained in a coma. Both dogs were euthanatized 12 h after the examination. The dogs were diagnosed with idiopathic epilepsy and fibrillar astrocytoma, respectively, after postmortem examination. They were also diagnosed with progressive myelomalacia, involving C1-C5 until the L4-S3 spinal segments. Since it was not possible to attribute the development of myelomalacia to the primary diseases observed, the lumbar tap likely caused this severe spinal cord injury. These reports highlight myelomalacia as a possible complication of lumbar taps.