Surgical Treatment of Spinal Cord Tumors with Microsurgical Technique.

We studied the surgical results of 26 cases diagnosed the spinal cord tumor. 13 cases were treated in microsurgical technique and other 13 cases were not used the microscope at the time of surgery. There were 20 cases of schwannoma, 3 cases of meningioma, 2 cases of lipoma and one case of neurofibroma. Microsurgical technique were used for 8 cases of schwannoma, 2 cases of meningioma, 2 cases of lipoma and one case of neurofibroma. We compared the surgical results of the two groups using the microscope or not.Follow up study which was done 6 months to 8 years post operatively revealed the acceptable results in both groups except the urinary dysfunction in two cases. All cases in both groups had normal daily activities at the time of follow up study. Of course, the microsurgical technique were chose to the spinal cord tumors which were severe space taking lesions to the neural tissues. But, we think that we prefer to use the microscope at the time of surgery to all spinal cord tumors as the atraumatic technique.