[Problem of the early recognition of spinal cord tumors]

Two thirds of a group of patients with 40 space-restricting processes in the region of the spinal canal were submitted to an operation in the stage of an incomplete transverse syndrome. A striking fact was that these patients had tumours of different histological classifications which were localised in the thoracic and thoraco-lumbal transitional region Tumours in the cervical and cervico-thoracic transitional region were mainly operated on in their early stages. They had a considerably shorter period of anamnesis from the beginning of the clinical symptoms up to the operation. A cause of the different periods of anamnesis with different localisations is discussed.