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Patients with varicose veins of the lower extremities with osteoarthritis of the knee often experience improvement in knee joint symptoms after endovascular treatment. We considered that it was important to decide the operation indication of lower extremity varices, to know the correlation between the two diseases in the treatment of varicose veins. To investigate the postoperative improvement of knee symptoms related to varicose veins with knee osteoarthritis, we conducted a questionnaire survey for a total of 12 months, from December 2014 to May 2015 and from October 2018 to March 2019. The participants were 35 patients (7 men and 28 women) with varicose veins complicated with knee osteoarthritis. We classified knee osteoarthritis according to a grading scale and compared the improvement of knee symptoms after endovenous thermal ablation. The higher the knee grade, the lower the degree of improvement. However, the improvement was observed in all knee osteoarthritis grades, and as a whole, 25 patients (71.4%) have experienced improvement of subjective symptoms. For patients with knee osteoarthritis, we strongly recommend surgical treatment of the varicose veins regardless of the progression of knee grade. (This is a translation of Jpn J Phlebol 2019; 30(3): 279-283.).

Between 1983 and 1988, osteoplastic laminotomy was performed in six cases after tumor extirpation of the cauda equina. Histological examinations of the tumor proved that five were Schwannoma and one was benign cystic teratoma. Surgical procedures were determined by size and location of the tumor. Four cases were treatd by the operative technique reported in 1976 by Raimondi et al. In one case, after extirpation of the left side dumb-bell type Schwannoma between the third and fourth lumbar vertbra, excised spinous process was used for coverage of the spinal canal and postero-lateral fusion was also performed in the affected side. A small and localized tumor was excised with partial hemilaminectomy and resection of the reconstructed spinous process. Reconstruction of posterior part of the lumbar vertebra is important to prevent postoperative kyphosis, anterior subluxation, and instability of the spine especially in children.