Current Treatment of Metastatic Spine Tumors - Surgery and Stereotactic Radiosurgery

There has been significant progress and innovation in the treatment of patients with metastatic spinal tumors over the last two to three decades that has impacted our ability to provide individualized care that improves a patient's quality of life and degree of neurologic impairment. Advances in surgical techniques and radiation delivery modalities have dramatically improved our ability to decrease local tumor recurrence rates, improve pain control, and provide more durable spinal stability. Modern day spine tumor resection and reconstruction techniques have been shown to improve and prolong patients' ability to ambulate, maintain continence, and reduce the need for pain medications. Spinal radiosurgery, the focused delivery of radiation to a target in the spine, has significantly enhanced the ability to provide a high degree of local tumor control in a non-invasive manner, even for tumors that are deemed radioresistant by conventional radiation therapy standards. In most patients, a combination of treatment modalities, including both surgery and radiation, is the mainstay of any comprehensive treatment plan for metastatic spinal tumors. [Full article available at http://rimed.org/rimedicaljournal-2017-06.asp].