Surgical Management of Intramedullary Spinal Cord Tumors: Functional Outcome and Sources of Morbidity

WE ARE REPORTING the functional outcome of 69 of 86 patients affected by intramedullary spinal cord tumors who underwent surgery at our department during the period of 1984 to 1992. The results on 17 patients affected by hemangioblastomas and cavernomas were excluded from this study and will be published separately. Twenty-eight patients had astrocytic processes; 34 had ependymoma; 4 had lipoma; 2 had neurofibroma; and 1 had oligodendroglioma. The overall rate of «radically» resected tumors was 55.1%, as opposed to 17.4% «quasiradically,» and 27.5% of «partially» resected processes. There was one postoperative death. Five other patients, affected by anaplastic astrocytomas, died because of tumor progress within 16 months from the operation