My Surgical Experience of Spinal Cord Tumor Surgery

Abstract

I’ve had spinal cord tumor surgery for quite some time. During about 25 years, 321 intramedullary tumors, 929 intradural extramedullary tumors, and 182 extradural tumors were operated. While I worked as a neurosurgeon, I learned a lot from patients and image like as MR. I have changed many of my practices. I used to use steroids and insert drain. However, currently, steroids are never used, and if dura is opened, no drain is added. In schwannoma, you have to meet endoneurial fluid. And spinal cord meningioma is intradural extra-arachnoidal tumor. In hemangioblastoma, it is not cauterization but dissection. In ependymoma, the tumor should be dissected from gray matter of spinal cord. The principle of cavernous malformation surgery is to open the shortest distance from the lesion. I would like to share my experience and ideas with others in this book. I’ve also changed and developed a lot of spinal cord tumor surgery, but I think there’s still a lot to change. I hope my experiences and ideas in this book will help surgeons performing spinal cord tumor surgery.