Intramedullary metastases: report of 4 cases and review of the literature.

Intramedullary metastases are very rare. We report four cases verified by autopsy. The site of the primary tumor was the lung (three cases) and the breast (one case). One case was complicated by a Brown-Séquard syndrome. We found 96 cases of intramedullary metastases in the literature. The primary tumor sites were lung (49%), breast (14%), kidney (6%) and colo-rectal region (5%). Melanoma was noted in 6% and Hodgkin's disease in 4% of the cases. Other primary tumors comprised 9%. The intramedullary metastases were most commonly thoracic. We compare our findings to those in the literature.