Info on Arnold-Chiari I, Idiopathic Syringomyelia, and Idiopathic Scoliosis: Causes and Insights

Since 2008, the ICSEB team has looked after patients from 61 countries, offering a worldwide unique treatment based on more than 40 years of experience. On 12 June 2008, the doors of the Institut Chiari & Siringomielia & Escoliosis de Barcelona (ICSEB) headquarters opened for the first time to the public. The opening ceremony, even though it only seemed to be a starting point, was actually also the culmination of an intense medical and scientific work that had started in the seventies led by Dr. Miguel B. Royo-Salvador, ICSEB’s Director and Founder. At the beginning of his investigation, Dr. Royo focused on the cause of idiopathic Syringomyelia , followed by that of the Arnold-Chiari Syndrome Type I and, later, the cause of idiopathic Scoliosis . He reached the conclusion that these three conditions, together with other associated ones, share a common point: the cause. According to scientific criteria, the origin of these conditions is an abnormal tension of a...

Cícera dos Santos tells the story of her sister, Maria do Socorro, diagnosed with Arnold-Chiari Syndrome Type I six years ago and operated by means of suboccipital craniotomy (SOC, decompression surgery) four years ago. After the surgery, the patient coninued to get worse: intensification of the pain, breathing difficulty, loss of strength in the upper and lower extremities and many other symptoms. Due to the deterioration of her clinic, she had to start using a wheelchair to move around since August 2017. In addition, Maria do Socorro lost her voice (*) in April of last year. For this reasons it is her sister, Cícera, who is telling her story in this video. Cícera explains that, after the craniotomy, her sister had started investigating about her pathology on the Internet and that she had found the ICSEB and it was like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. From that moment, both of them started a big group effort to make the trip to Barcelona viable. ...

Award Ceremony Past Friday, 16 March 2018, at Institut Chiari & Siringomielia & Escoliosis de Barcelona (ICSEB)’s main offices, Ms. Eva Subirá Jiménez, Director of AENOR Catalunya (Spanish Association for Standardization and Certification), officially delivered the Quality Management System Certification based on the UNE-EN ISO 9001:2015 standard*, for the following activities: Research, diagnosis and treatment of Filum Disease Diagnosis and treatment of neurosurgical diseases

Today we would like to share yet another wonderful patient story. Rafael, a young patient affected by the Neuro-Cranio-Vertebral Syndrome, Filum Disease with an intramedullary cyst (idiopathic Syringomyelia) had to rely on a wheelchair to get around when he arrived at the Institut Chiari & Siringomielia & Escoliosis de Barcelona for his first consultation. After receiving the confirmation that he was a candidate for the Filum System® health method, he underwent the minimally invasive surgical procedure that is part of this method (the sectioning of teh filum terminale). In this video you can follow his post-op course during the first weeks after the procedure with short clips recorded by his family and at the Institute. Here in Barcelona we are very happy for Rafael and his family and very grateful to be able to share these images. We wish him the best for his recovery and rehabilitation and hope to continue seeing these great results.

Many of the patients who have been diagnosed with the Arnold-Chiari Syndrome, idiopathic Syringomyelia, idiopathic Scoliosis and/or other associated conditions, who elected the Filum System® health method as their treatment of choice, show great kindness and generosity in sharing their experiences in written and video accounts for other patients in similar situations to consider and to raise awareness around the globe.  Meet some of these greathearted individuals and find out about their stories. Nicolas is today eight year old boy who underwent Sectioning of the Filum terminale procedure at a very young age, with only three years. His parents describe how they first felt about the diagnosis and travelling abroad for treatment and share MR imaging from check ups over the years. The most recent MRI reading indicates: ”currently an obvious decrease of the small hydro-syringomyelic cavity between C6and T1 can is observed”. Read the full account and see the ...

Over the years the ICSEB team has continued to grow, to thereby attend the increase in inquiries from patients from all around the world . This last year Anoop Tiwari joined the Institut, who is our contact person for patients who speak Hindi or English. Among his work responsibilities we can highlight the translations of medical documents into Hindi and English, as well as IT support for projects related to publishing and communication of contents. He has a lot of experience in people assistance and care in an international environment, so he has integrated very well into our multicultural team .     On personal level he shares with his adoptive culture the values of family and friends, besides his natural tendency to care for others, something that he enriches with one of his passions: cooking, offering creative combinations of flavours of India with those of the rest of the world.

We are pleased to announce that the director of Institut Chiari & Siringomielia & Escoliosis de Barcelona , Dr. Royo Salvador, has been invited to collaborate with the association Worldwide Syringomyelia & Chiari Task Force and to join the medical board of this association that is based in the United States. It aims to educate professionals and patients about the diagnoses that included in the organization’s name. At the same time, it is promoting a study of these diseases at international level under the auspices of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Organization for Rare Disorders in North America. We are happy to share this collaboration and we hope it will be bring fruitful and lasting results for the benefit of patients throughout the world. The invitation letter sent to Dr. Royo by the association: http://institutchiaribcn.com/commons//pdf/communication-letters/Letter-WSCTF-ICSEB.pdf

Won’t my spinal cord be moving around on the inside after cutting the filum? The sectioning of the filum terminale ligament involves the elimination of the anomalous traction that acts on the patient’s spinal cord and nervous system. Once the surgery is performed, the nervous system is liberated, but no tissue changes its position. Only in some cases we detect that the conus medullaris and the descended cerebellar tonsils, over time and very slowly (normally years after the surgery), may rise by some millimetres.

I would like to know if an Arnold Chiari I Syndrome can be operated on in an initial phase / I am being told that the descent of my cerebellar tonsils is not a Arnold Chiari I Syndrome, because it is of few millimetres, and that it does not need to be operated.  Do you agree with this indication? As soon as a descent of the cerebellar tonsils is detected, even if it is mild, our specialists study the complementary magnetic resonance scans, and/or others, in order to confirm whether this is due, or not, to a mechanical traction and identify the cause that brings it about. Example of a mild descent of the cerebellar tonsils.   If the existence of a mechanical traction of the spinal cord is confirmed, and the cause is an excessively tight filum terminale ( Filum Disease ), the SFT procedure is indicated as soon as possible in order to eliminate the traction that is traumatizing the spinal cord. For more Q & A vi sit our website .

We are grateful to Dr. Victoria for sharing his personal experience with two cases of Filum Disease in his family: his wife and his daughter.

The Institut Chiari & Siringomielia& Escoliosis de Barcelona (ICSEB) works with patients from all over the world. Since its foundation, a team of international patient care was built in order to support our medical team in communicating with patients of any language or nationality. With the developments in the last 50 years in the field of Medical Anthropology, a sub-field of Cultural and Social Anthropology, a theory has been developed at international level. This theory deals with the social processes and the cultural representations of health, illness and healthcare or assistance practices related to it. Thanks to this, we know how important the attention to these aspects is, especially in the healthcare sector, as well as the presence of a professional figure to mediate between the physician and the patient from a different culture in the work ambit.

To all our readers from Russia: we would like to invite you to also visit our social media option in Russian on vk.com. We hope you will find it of interest.  

Making most of the arrival of the New Year 2016, we, at Institut Chiari & Siringomielia & Escoliosis de Barcelona , are developing an entirely new look of our website. This new version is adapted to the latest technologies, including new features to enhance the user experience. Note that the new website will be "responsive" and optimized for mobile devices. Here is the summary of some of the salient features: New welcome page, where you will find the description of the major diseases we treat, as well as recent testimonials from our patients, important news, upcoming events and popular science publications. Simplified navigation , the new website will have a new restructuring of sections for the easy access to contents. Our objective: we want it to become a benchmark, accessible and available to all patients for information. New webdesign - preview

Are you curious about the Institut Chiari de Barcelona and its staff? Take a look at this short presentation video. We hope you enjoy it and look forward to your comments. 

Are you looking for more information about the different diagnoses that we treat at the Institut Chiari de Barcelona, about how to get in contact with the medical team, the risks involved in the surgical procedure, the reuqired aftercare, etc?   We  are pleased to inform that the " Frequently Asked Questions Section " on our website is now also available in English. Do you have any suggestions for other questions to be included? Please do not hesitate to leave a comment and let us know. FAQ - Institut Chiari & Siringomielia & Escoliosis de Barcelona

The Institut Chiari & Siringomielia & Escoliosis de Barcelona (ICSEB) is happy to announce that during the past month of May 2015, the Spanish Innovation Certification Agency (ACIE) and ENAC have certified our project “ Research, development and application of the diagnosis and treatment of the new Filum Disease ” as Research and Development (R&D).

It is a great satisfaction for all the staff at the INSTITUT CHIARI & SIRINGOMIELIA & ESCOLIOSIS DE BARCELONA (ICSEB) to be able to share with you that our management system has been verified, proven and recognised by one of the best Spanish certifying companies (AENOR), based on the UNE-EN ISO 9001:2008 standard. Certification Nº:  ER-0081 / 2015 This certification is equivalent to the AFNOR, CISQ, DQS and NSAI certifications in the USA.

Today we are sharing some news from the Communications Department of the Institut Chiari & Siringomielia &  de Barcelona with information regarding the activism of patients in France to fight for awareness of diseases they are affected by, recognition of the indicated treatment and reimboursement of the treatment cost by the public services.

In today's post, we would like to introduce to you part of the international staff in charge of making an appointment at our Institut for patients travelling to Barcelona from all around the world as comfortable and comprehensible as possible.  Please meet our contact persons for Japanese, Italian and Russian patients: Yuka Takahashi was born not so many years ago in the Chiba Prefecture, very close to Tokyo. She graduated in Japanese philology and specialized later on in in teaching Japanese as a foreign language. The ICSEB can be proud to count since 2012 with one of the best “receptionists” to be had. The concept of being a “receptionist” is a little different to how we perceive it in the Western world; for a Japanese it is something difficult to translate, there are many nuances to it. It is only fair to admit that the first Japanese patient that we had the privilege to treat here at the ICSEB, came to us thanks to her.

On 14 November, we had the pleasure to witness the closure of the course “Diagnosis and treatment of the filum disease” , 2nd edition, in the main lecture room of the Filum Academy Barcelona ® .     The event was sponsored by the Chiari & Scoliosis & Syringomyelia Foundation and counted with the presence of Dr Alfonso Rodríguez-Baeza, Anatomy and Embryology professor of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He delighted the participants with a splendid keynote speech with the title “Filum Terminale”.