Ipsilateral referral of pain following cordotomy

We report a patient who developed ipsilateral referred pain following unilateral percutaneous cervical cordotomy (PCC). A right-sided PCC was performed on a 44-year-old woman who had been suffering from left groin and thigh pain caused by a fibrosarcoma. PCC produced analgesia below T7 on the left side, and the pain disappeared. A novel spontaneous pain with prominent allodynia occurred postoperatively in the right infraclavicular region (C3-C4). Strong pressure on the left groin where severe spontaneous pain and tenderness had been before PCC increased the new pain, and an epidural block which produced analgesia below T10 relieved the new pain. These facts indicate that the new pain was induced by afferent inputs from the originally painful region.