Spinal Tumors

To avoid serious, permanent damage from a spinal tumor, it’s essential to get help as soon as possible. Your care team will discuss your tumor type, stage, and location and design a personalized cancer of the spine treatment plan that may include a combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and/or radiation therapy.

Noninvasive treatment for spinal tumors

Nonsurgical treatments for spinal tumors include:

• Monitoring. If a tumor is benign and is not growing or spreading, then monitoring with periodic doctor visits may be all that is needed.
• Chemotherapy. Treatment with anticancer medications is most commonly used for metastatic (secondary) spinal tumors. These medications may shrink a tumor or slow its growth. Chemotherapy may help relieve pain and neurological symptoms and maintain the spine’s stability. 
• Radiation therapy. Many spine tumors can be treated with radiation alone, either with conventional radiotherapy or higher-dose stereotactic radiosurgery. Radiation therapy may also be used to inhibit tumor growth and relieve pain. 
• Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS). SRS involves the delivery of thin beams of radiation to target a tumor from various angles with pinpoint precision, using sophisticated equipment. Examples of SRS include the Gamma Knife and CyberKnife.

Spinal tumor surgery

Surgery to remove a tumor is a standard treatment for many patients with spine tumors and spinal cord tumors. Our spine surgeons use minimally invasive spinal tumor surgery whenever appropriate, operating through small incisions and reducing recovery time.

Our surgeons are also highly skilled in the use of open surgical techniques. Neuronavigation, for example, is similar to a GPS and is used to navigate your spine. Robotics may also be employed.

Many intradural extramedullary tumors, which are outside the spinal cord (such as schwannomas and meningiomas) as well as intramedullary tumors, which are inside the spinal cord (such as ependymomas and hemangioblastomas) can be completely removed during surgery. 

Maximizing safety. For operations on or near the spinal cord, NewYork-Presbyterian surgeons use careful monitoring with neurophysiological techniques to monitor the function of the spinal cord during surgery. This approach maximizes the safety of spinal cord tumor surgery.

Types of surgery include:

• Decompression surgery. This treatment is helpful for tumors that compress the spinal cord or nerves. The surgeon removes the tumor and a portion of the vertebrae affected by the compression. Bone grafts and metallic implants may be used to restore the spine’s stability in patients with fractures and in those who need extensive tumor removal.
• Vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty. A surgeon injects artificial bone cement into a compressed vertebra to stabilize the bone and prevent further damage from occurring. With balloon kyphoplasty, a tiny balloon is inflated inside the vertebra to restore its height. The cement is then injected into the expanded space to ensure the bone does not collapse again. Both procedures are performed under X-ray guidance.