A consecutive series of 17 patients underwent extirpation of intramedullary spinal cord tumor between January, 1990 and January, 1999.
The patients were 11 men and 6 women with an average age of 42.6. Their histology was ependymoma in 5 cases, cavernous hemangioma in 3 cases, neurilemoma and astrocytoma in 2 cases, glioblstoma, lipoma and intramedullary metastatic tumor in 1 case. Preoperative neurological evaluation was very good in 5 cases, good in 4, fair in 4 and poor in 4. Neurological evaluation revealed deterioration just after surgery in many cases and gradual improvement with time in somecases. In 10 cases we could follow-up more than a year. Recent neurologicalstates were functional improvement from the preoperative status in 3 patients, no remarkable change in 2 patients, and deterioration in 5 patients.
This experience suggests that surgery can not always produce satisfactory result for intramedullary spinal tumor.
