Two-Level Separation Surgery for Thoracic Epidural Metastatic Disease: An Operative Video Demonstration

The spinal column is one of the most common regions of cancer metastasis. Spinal metastases typically occur in the vertebral body, and due to direct posterior extension or retropulsed pathological fractures, they often present with signs and symptoms of epidural spinal cord compression. This scenario requires surgical management to relieve compression and stabilize the spine. Separation surgery establishes a corridor to the ventral epidural space via pediculectomy, which allows for circumferential decompression and creation of a tumor-free margin around the thecal sac. Separation surgery is an increasingly popular method for the management of spinal metastases, particularly due to potentially reduced morbidity versus en bloc tumor resection, and its proven effectiveness when combined with spinal radiosurgery. Thus, separation surgery should be considered in patients with high-grade metastatic ventral epidural spinal cord compression. In this video, we present the case of a 61-year-old woman with metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma found to have severe spinal cord compression due to pathological vertebral body fractures at T10-T12, and ventral epidural disease at T10 and T12. The patient received T8-L2 posterior instrumented fusion and T10 and T12 separation surgery, with intraoperative cement embolization. We demonstrate the operative steps required to complete this procedure (Video 1).