Today, many people talk about cancer. Many patients who have cervical spondylosis, lumbar disc herniation or lumbar spinal stenosis are also very concerned about whether their disease will become cancerous. Many people come to outpatient clinics and ask doctors to conduct further examinations, requesting X-rays or even CT or MRI examinations, in fact, they are afraid of having “bone cancer”. As we all know, cervical spondylosis, lumbar disc herniation and lumbar spinal stenosis are a group of diseases in which the corresponding spinal nerve roots are irritated and compressed due to the degeneration of intervertebral discs, and then the corresponding clinical symptoms appear, and most of them are degenerative diseases of aging. There are two types of malignant tumors that occur in the spine. The most common type is a metastatic tumor that has metastasized to the spine through the bloodstream because of a malignant tumor in another part of the body, or cancer, and the other rare type is a cancer in the spine itself, which is called a primary spinal tumor. These two types of malignant tumors of the spine are not related to degenerative diseases of the spine such as cervical spondylosis and lumbar disc herniation, therefore, there is no need to worry about cancer when you have cervical spondylosis or lumbar disc herniation. However, primary or metastatic spinal tumors occurring in the cervical or lumbar spine may show symptoms similar to cervical spondylosis or lumbar disc herniation such as neck, shoulder and arm pain or radiating numbness and pain in the lower limbs in the early stage, but spinal tumors usually have severe pain, numbness and weakness in the limbs and other spinal nerve root compression manifestations will increase rapidly. Therefore, for patients with rapid onset of neck, shoulder and arm pain or radiating numbness of the lower limbs, and rapid onset of limb paralysis, they should be alert to the occurrence of spinal tumors, and early MRI examination can help in early detection of the disease. For patients who already have malignant tumors in other parts of the body, the occurrence of metastatic cancer of the spine should be especially highly alerted when the above symptoms appear.