Investigating Long-term Outcomes of Surgical Treatment in Spinal Tumors: A 10 years Follow-up Study

Spinal tumors account for 10-15% of total central nervous system neoplasms. This study presents the results of surgical procedures performed on a significant number of patients with spinal tumors.

The present article presents results of surgery performed on 104 of 204 patients with spinal cord tumors referred to the hospital clinic where they underwent the operation from 2005 to 2015. The studied cases included age, sex, and duration of the disease, and clinical symptoms and their time of occurrence, place of birth, radiological characteristics, surgical results, surgical resection, tumor histology, and complications. In addition, the results are compared with other studies.

A total of 104 studied subjects who underwent the surgery 50% were male. The mean age of patients was 37.1 years. The most common site of the tumor was the thoracic (30.8%) and cervical regions (27.9%). Extramedullary and intramedullary tumors accounted for 74.1% and 25.7% of cases, respectively. Among the extramedullary masses, the most common pathology was nerve plexus tumor (58.4%) and then meningium (18.2%). Astrocytoma (55.6%) and epandiomy (25.9%) were, respectively, the most common types of intramedullary tumors. The total or almost total resection was performed in 78.9 of cases. The average follow-up time was 29 months. The post-operative neurological status of patients was improved in 84.6% of cases.

The factors affecting on the final state of the patients after the operation include the degree of malignancy, the extent of the lesion and the pre-operative severity of the neural defect.