Back pain and epidural spinal cord compression.

The physician must have a high index of suspicion to detect SCC early in patients with malignancy. Back pain is the first symptom in almost all patients, and the diagnosis should be considered for all older patients with back pain. Asking about back pain should be a routine part of the review of systems, especially for patients with known malignancies. Clinically, it is impossible to tell whether or not a patient who has back pain and cancer has epidural SCC. Patients may be stratified as to the likelihood of SCC using the history and physical examination, but the diagnosis relies on radiographic visualization of the spinal cord. It may be acceptable to closely follow patients with normal neurologic examinations and normal plain films, but even this is controversial and includes only a minority of patients. Myelography remains the test of choice. MRI will play an increasingly important role in the future, but has not yet been systematically evaluated. The best therapeutic approach is not clear, but standard treatment is only about 50% effective in all cases. At present, radiation therapy is the treatment of choice for many patients, in particular those who are ambulatory at diagnosis. Anterior resection with vertebral body reconstruction is an exciting approach and may substantially improve the prognosis for patients who are paraparetic or paraplegic. It is important to attempt to choose for each patient the diagnostic and therapeutic options offering the best chance for comfort and preservation of function. The decision of how or even whether to treat is multifactorial and is more complicated than the determination of simply whether or not compression is present.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)