Thyroid carcinoma generally has a favorable prognosis, and patients rarely present with distant metastases. Authors of several studies have proposed piecemeal resection for spinal metastases in thyroid carcinoma; however, few have analyzed the impact of local curative surgery such as total en bloc spondylectomy (TES) for thyroid carcinoma. The purposes of the present study are to determine the strategy of ... Read more

Solitary plasmacytomas of bone involve vertebral bodies in one-third of patients and frequently affect men (70%). The median age of those affected is 56 years. A monoclonal protein in the serum is observed in 24% to 54% of patients, but in the remaining cases no detectable monoclonal protein is seen. Read more

No previous studies discussed the significance of the MRI pattern of vertebral collapse in differentiation between vertebral compression fractures due to malignancy, osteoporosis and infections. MRI was used in evaluation of 152 atraumatic vertebral compression fractures in 80 patients: 85 metastatic, 34 osteoporotic and 33 infective. Central collapse of the fractured vertebral body was the most common pattern in malignant ... Read more

BACKGROUND: Treatment of ventral lesions to the spinal cord in the thoracic spinal canal (e.g., meningiomas) are surgical challenges. Original or modified costotransversectomy has been commonly used for extirpation of such lesions. However, these techniques incur great loss of posterior elements followed by spinal instability that requires spinal fusion. The authors have developed a new surgical technique that combined the ... Read more

We read with great interest the paper by Kasai et ] published in International Orthopaedics. We congratulate the authors on their work. We agree with them on one point and disagree on another one. The first is that a long time (above 5 years) between diagnosis of the thyroid cancer and the operation for the spinal metastases would be a ... Read more

We present a retrospective study of patients suffering from a variety of benign tumours in whom external fixators were used to treat deformity and limb-length discrepancy, and for the reconstruction of bone defects. A total of 43 limbs in 31 patients (12 male and 19 female) with a mean age of 14 years (2 to 54) were treated. The diagnosis ... Read more

Osteomylitis of the spine is an inflammatory destruction of at least one spinal unit, initially caused by bacteria settling in capillaries of the vertebral end plate. In patients with major bone destruction, neurological impairment, antibiotic resistant sepsis, or recurrence of infection and pain, an operation with anterior debridment and fusion by using autografts is an accepted way of treatment with ... Read more

The Surgical Strategy for Spinal Metastases” has been developed to facilitate decision-making in patients with spinal metastases. The aim of the present study was to test if this strategy could be helpful in decision-making in patients with thyroid cancer spinal metastases. We have reviewed 14 consecutive patients operated for thyroid cancer spinal metastases in Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Kanazawa University, ... Read more

BACKGROUND: A new classification system for juxta-articular osteosarcoma around the knee joint was developed to allow biological reconstructions using distraction osteogenesis or frozen autograft containing tumors treated with liquid nitrogen. Type I: Tumor has metaphyseal extension to a maximum of 2 cm from the epiphyseal cartilage plate. Type II: Tumor extends to at least half the circumference of the epiphyseal ... Read more

In severe osteomyelitis of the spine, open debridement and anterior fusion by anterior bone grafting offers the advantage of eradication of the focus of infection and improvement of conditions for bony fusion of the affected vertebral bodies. Some limited papers reported the use of spinal shortening for anterior reconstruction after fractures or tumors. Ten patients of infections of the thoracic ... Read more