[Malignant lumbosciatic syndrome. Report of 21 cases with vertebral metastases]

We describe twenty one cases of tumoral metastasis on the vertebral column simulating initially discal herniation. All of them presented sciatica as a primary clinical manifestation of the malignant tumor. We describe here the differential diagnosis with other pathologies and the different outcome, like the poor response to regular treatment, alteration of the normal status, and alteration of the laboratory data. The radiologic findings and the laboratory abnormalities found in the emergency analysis should induce us to do more complete studies of the patient aimed to identify an underlying tumoral pathology.