Possible causes of spinal cord herniation are a history of (occult) minor trauma or herniated and/or calcified disk. This eventually could lead to thinning and rupture of the dura.

In the majority of cases no possible antecedent cause is identified and the dural defect is thought to be congenital or idiopathic in nature.

In our case there is no relevant history and also there are no obvious signs of disk pathology, so imaging features in this case are consistent with ventral cord herniation or idiopathic spinal cord herniation.