ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

Journal of Neurosurgical Sciences 2002 June;46(2):66-70

Copyright © 2002 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Osteochondroma of the spine: an enigmatic tumor of the spinal cord. A series of 10 cases

Sharma M. C. ¹, Arora R. ¹, Deol P. S. ², Mahapatra A. K. ³, Mehta V. S. ³, Sarkar C. ¹

¹ Department of Pathology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India; ² Department of Neuroradiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India; ³ Department of Neurosurgery, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

Background. The aim of ­this ­study was to eval­u­ate clin­i­cal, radio­log­i­cal and path­o­log­i­cal fea­tures of ver­te­bral oste­o­chon­dro­mas ­with com­pres­sive mye­lop­a­thy and to ­review the rel­e­vant English lit­er­a­ture. Osteochondro-mas are com­mon ­benign ­bony ­lesions of ­long ­bones but involve­ment of ­spine by sol­i­tary oste­o­chon­dro­ma and its pres­en­ta­tion as com­pres­sive mye­lop­a­thy is ­rare. Most of the lit­er­a­ture is in the ­form of ­case ­reports.
Methods. During a peri­od of 20 ­years (1980-1999), 10 cas­es of oste­o­chon­dro­mas of the ­spine ­were encoun­tered. Clinical, radio­log­i­cal and path­o­log­i­cal fea­tures ­were ­reviewed.
Results. The age ­ranged ­from 13 to 45 ­years (­mean 25.3 ­years) and all ­except 1 ­were ­males. In 8 cas­es the pathol­o­gy ­involved the cer­vi­cal ­spine and in two cas­es dor­sal ­spine was ­involved. All ­patients pre­sent­ed ­with pro­gres­sive ­motor sen­so­ry def­i­cit of 6 ­months to 30 ­years dura­tion (­mean 3.9 ­years). Decompressive lam­i­nec­to­my was car­ried out in all the ­patients. Fortunately, grad­u­al and com­plete recov­ery was ­observed in all of ­them.
Conclusions. Osteochondromas of the ­spine are not as ­rare as report­ed in the lit­er­a­ture. In a ­young ­patient of com­pres­sive mye­lop­a­thy ­this pos­sibil­ity ­should be con­sid­ered. Magnetic res­o­nance imag­ing, com­put­ed tomog­ra­phy and CT mye­lo­gram are use­ful in eval­u­at­ing the ­size and ­extent of the ­lesion for sub­se­quent sur­gi­cal plan­ning.