Surgical vertebral body cementoplasty as spinal cancer metastasis management

Spinal metastases of cancer are frequent and their treatment strategy remains a problem. The aim of the present paper is to present the technique of cementoplasty and its originality. Spine corporeal cementoplasty techniques were performed in 9 patients with spine metastasis treated at Neurosurgery Department between 2002 and 2005. This series is composed of four women and five men. The average age of patients was 54 years. All patients were admitted for treatment of metastasis of breast carcinoma, metastasis of breast adenocarcinoma (three cases), colon cancer (two cases), pulmonary adenocarcinoma (one case) and melanoma (three cases). Metastasis was located on the cervical spine (3 cases), thoracic spine (4 cases) and lumbar spine (2 cases). No case of cement leaking was observed. In eight patients neurological deficit and pain were decreased. In one patient we noted a persistence of neurological deficit but pain decreased. A post-operative radiological analysis showed good spine stability. Before their death this treatment had improved their quality of life. The technique of surgical cementoplasty described in this paper may be used for a surgical treatment of metastasis and spinal stabilisation. It is an alternative to a palliative treatment of metastasis when it is not possible to perform vertebroplasty.