Objective Spinal cord cavernous malformation (CM) is an intramedullary vascular lesion that may present with progressive symptoms. Surgery is recommended for symptomatic patients, but optimal timing of surgery is debatable. Some advocate waiting until plateau of neurological recovery and others support emergency surgery. There is no statistic on how commonly these strategies are utilized. We aimed to find contemporary practice pattern among neurosurgical spine centers in Japan.
Methods A database of intramedullary spinal cord tumors assembled by Neurospinal Society of Japan was surveyed and 160 patients with spinal cord CM were identified. Neurological function, disease duration, and number of days between presentation to hospitals and surgery were analyzed.
Results Duration of disease before presentation to hospitals ranged from 0 to 336 months (median, 4 months). Number of days between patients’ presentation and surgery ranged from 0 to 6,011 days (median, 32 days). Time from symptom onset to surgery ranged from 0 to 336.9 months (median, 6.6 months). Patients with severe preoperative neurological dysfunction had shorter duration of disease, fewer days between presentation and surgery, and shorter time between symptom onset and surgery. Patients with paraplegia or quadriplegia were more likely to improve when operated on within 3 months from onset.
Conclusion Timing of surgery for spinal cord CM in Japanese neurosurgical spine centers generally was early, with 50% of patients undergoing surgery within 32 days after presentation. Further study is needed to clarify optimal timing of surgery.
Citations
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Spontaneous Regression of De Novo Cavernous Malformation in the Spinal Canal after Hemorrhage: A Case Report Minami Saura, Kiyoyuki Yanaka, Kuniyuki Onuma, Kazuhiro Nakamura, Nobuyuki Takahashi, Aiki Marushima, Eiichi Ishikawa Asian Journal of Neurosurgery.2026; 21(01): 153. CrossRef
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Jiin Kang, Naobumi Hosogane, Christopher Ames, Frank Schwab, Robert Hart, Douglas Burton, Christopher Shaffrey, Justin S. Smith, Shay Bess, Virginie Lafage, Kyu-Jung Cho, Yoon Ha, for the International Spine Study Group and Asian Pacific Spine Study Group
Neurospine 2018;15(4):353-361. Published online August 29, 2018
Objective This study is aimed to investigate whether surgical strategies for adult spinal deformity (ASD) treatment differed among Korean physicians.
Methods This study is retrospective questionnaire-based study. ASD is challenging to manage, with a broad range of clinical and radiological presentations. To investigate possible nationality- or ethnicity-related differences in the surgical strategies adopted for ASD treatment, the International Spine Study Group surveyed physicians’ responses to 16 cases of ASD. We reviewed the answers to this survey from Korean physicians. Korean orthopedic surgeons (OS) and neurosurgeons (NS) received a questionnaire containing 16 cases and response forms via email. After reviewing the cases, physicians were asked to indicate whether they would treat each case with decompression or fusion. If fusion was chosen, physicians were also asked to indicate whether they would perform 3-column osteotomy. Retrospective chi-square analyses were performed to investigate whether the answers to each question differed according to training specialty or amount of surgical experience.
Results Twenty-nine physicians responded to our survey, of whom 12 were OS and 17 were NS. In addition, 18 (62.1%) had more than 10 years of experience in ASD correction and were assigned to the M10 group, while 11 (37.9%) had less than 10 years of experience and were assigned to the L10 group. We found that for all cases, the surgical strategies favored did not significantly differ between OS and NS or between the M10 and L10 groups. However, for both fusion surgery and 3-column osteotomy, opinions were divided regarding the necessity of the procedures in 4 of the 16 cases.
Conclusion The surgical strategies favored by physicians were similar for most cases regardless of their training specialty or experience. This suggests that these factors do not affect the surgical strategies selected for ASD treatment, with patient clinical and radiological characteristics having greater importance.
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