Surgical Spinal Oncology

This book contains the expert knowledge base of the field’s most experienced practitioners in the field of extradural bone and soft tissue malignancy. Chapters include modern classification, advanced anatomy, imaging, and the concepts around a multidisciplinary approach. Since treating primary tumors requires very different strategies than those used in metastatic tumors, the book devotes separate sections to each sub-discipline. For primary tumors, the text covers both benign and malignant entities and addresses unique anatomic zones such as the sacrum and skull base which require special technical expertise. For metastatic disease, the authors address the ever-important concept of prognosis, and discuss how to answer the eternal question: “How much should we do, and for whom?”. Chapters also explore the state of the art of treatment for the “big 5” histologies (renal cell, lung, breast, prostate, thyroid), with a special chapter emphasis on separation surgery and the now-standard combinatorial care between radiation and surgery. In addition, an entire section is dedicated to evolving surgical technology, which covers the use of minimally invasive techniques, navigation, robotics, 3D-printing, and other evolving technologies for spine tumor care. Infrequently-considered topics, such as how to evaluate a lesion which may be a tumor-mimic, and how to think about economic value in spine tumor surgery, are also presented. Surgical Spinal Oncology serves to help surgeons approach difficult clinical scenarios with a thoughtful, collaborative approach that leverages the best technology and thinking the field of spine oncology has to offer.