Neoplasms and related disorders

Spinal neoplasms may be primary or metastatic, benign or malignant. In adults, metastatic involvement of the spine will represent the most important neoplastic disease of this region. However, hemangiomas are the most common spinal neoplasms. The vast majority of intradural, extramedullary neoplasms that will be identified in the spine are meningiomas and neurofibromas. Both lesions may be sporadic or associated with phakomatoses. Intramedullary spinal cord and filum terminale tumors are relatively rare and are far less common than intramedullary brain tumors. As is the case in the brain, these are overwhelmingly glial neoplasms, with ependymomas and low-grade astrocytomas representing the majority of the lesions. Hemangioblastoma deserves mention because of its often characteristic imaging findings and its association with von Hippel-Lindau disease.