Is there any point in treating spinal metastases?

  Cancer can spread from its initial site of appearance to other parts of the body. Tumor cells from the primary site are transferred to other parts of the body through the blood and lymphatic channels, or by other means. The tumor growing at the metastatic site still originates from the primary tumor and has the same cell type as the primary tumor. The term used to describe the spread of a tumor is metastatic tumor.  Bone is the most common site of metastasis for malignant tumors other than the lung and liver. About 70-80% of cancer patients eventually develop bone metastases, which are about 35-40 times more common than primary malignant bone tumors and are a frequent problem for orthopedic surgeons.  The most common one is prostate cancer, 90% of which can develop bone metastasis, and many patients even have bone metastasis when they are diagnosed. This is followed by breast cancer and lung cancer. Once metastasis of the skeletal system occurs the danger is high. What is more difficult is that 20% of patients with metastases have no previous history of malignant tumors.  Sometimes, even metastatic cancer is found, and the primary tumor cannot be found. Because malignant tumor cells are like criminals, the more malignant they are, the more likely they are to metastasize; while the primary site has little or no problem, at this time more detailed examination is needed to find out where the problem lies.  Warning signs: most of the following symptoms are bone metastases: 1. Pain (50%-90%): mostly fixed on one point (local): gradually aggravated, light during the day and heavy at night. In late stage with compression fracture, pain to the thoracic spine and lower back, radiating to the thigh area. Patients often have difficulty walking. Bone pain, initially transient in nature, persists as the disease progresses and worsens with exercise; 2. Pathological fracture (5%-40%): poor skeletal stress due to tumor, fracture occurs when there is no obvious trigger or when the trigger is very mild; 3. Hypercalcemia (10%-20%): high calcium ion levels in the blood triggering hypercalcemia, resulting in patients with no appetite, nausea, thirst, fatigue, muscle weakness, irritability, and confusion; 4. Spinal instability and spinal nerve root compression symptoms (<10%): other symptoms include lower limb paralysis, weakness, urinary and bowel elimination problems, or abdominal paralysis; 5. Bone marrow suppression (<10%).  For patients who have had tumors, especially prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, thyroid cancer, etc., extra care is needed if they develop low back pain, especially severe pain, which are common primary sites of metastatic spinal tumors. Of course, all malignant tumors have the potential to metastasize to the spine.  Many people do not know enough about bone metastases and consider them to be terminal, so they adopt a negative attitude in treatment and even give up treatment as "terminal disease". With the widespread development of comprehensive treatment and the development and progress of surgery, this old concept should be abandoned, and appropriate surgical treatment has definite effects on reducing pain, improving quality of life and prolonging survival. In the past two decades, many investigators have successively proposed various minimally invasive treatment options, which have gradually become an effective means of treating patients with spinal metastases and have achieved promising results.  PVP has been widely used as a palliative treatment option for spinal metastases because of its efficacy in treating pain caused by spinal metastases and its safety profile has been recognized by clinicians. Percutaneous translaminar vertebroplasty (PVP) is a method of injecting bone cement directly into the diseased vertebral body by percutaneous puncture via the pedicle route, using the cement to reshape the vertebral body, strengthen the vertebral body, maintain or restore stability of the diseased vertebral body, and reshape the physiological function of the vertebral body. Since then, PVP has been widely used in the treatment of vertebrae. Since then PVP has been widely used for spinal compression fractures caused by various spinal metastases.  Bone cement is a medical material used in orthopedic surgery, and it is commonly known as such because of some of its physical properties and its appearance and properties after solidification, which are quite similar to white cement used in construction and decoration. In fact, its proper name is bone cement, and its main component is polymethyl methacrylate. The pain of bone metastases arises due to the destruction of bones by metastatic tumors, the pathological fractures produced and the compression and invasion of nerves by the masses. The principle of intervention for bone metastases should first be to inactivate the tumor, then restore the function of the bone, fix the fracture as much as possible, or strengthen the bone, and in addition, protect the adjacent nerves to achieve pain relief. It has been reported that the efficacy of percutaneous cementoplasty is definite, and more than 85% of patients can get effective pain relief.  We have formed corresponding professional characteristics and have a high academic level in the field of minimally invasive surgical treatment of spinal tumors, etc. We have rich experience in treating osteoporotic compression fractures and spinal metastases using percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP). If you have such patients around you who are experiencing back pain, please feel free to contact us, hoping that our advanced technology and concepts can help patients solve their ailments.