Surgical treatment of spinal hemangioblastomas.

Background. The routine use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in recent years for the diagnostic assessment of the spinal column and especially for screening patients with von Hippel-Lindau (vHL) disease has shown that spinal hemangioblastomas (sHBs) are more common than assumed so far. Since most sHBs are thus discovered while they are still asymptomatic, especially in vHL disease, the question arises whether and when these tumors should be treated. The present article reports the results of the surgical treatment of sHBs using the protocol described below and compares them to the course in a control group of patients with conservatively treated sHBs.