Results of surgical treatment of spinal cord ependymomas

INTRODUCTION. Ependymomas are rare tumors; according to the literature, they account for 2 to 6 % of all spinal cord tumors in adults, while they are one of the most common intramedullary tumors. The main goal of surgical treatment of spinal ependymomas is total removal of the tumor while preserving healthy spinal cord tissue. At the moment, little information is provided about the consequences of radiotherapy before surgery.

AIM. Analysis of surgical treatment of 37 own observations and presentation of a clinical case of a patient with intramedullary ependymoma at the level of the cervical spine.

MATERIALS AND METHODS. We analyzed the data of 37 patients, including 20 men and 17 women, aged from 19 to 83 years (the average age of patients was 44.3 years), operated on at the Neurosurgical Department No. 1 of the Polenov Neurosurgery Institute – the branch of Almazov National Medical Research Centre in the period from 2019 to 2023. Upon admission, all patients underwent an assessment of their neurological status, functional status according to the McCormick scale, and an assessment of the involvement of the spinal canal structures in the pathological process according to MRI data.

RESULTS. We describe a series of 37 operated patients with the aim of contributing to the already published knowledge about the course and results of surgical treatment of patients with spinal cord ependymomas of various locations.

CONCLUSION. Based on the analyzed data, it can be concluded that radiation therapy in the preoperative period had a negative effect on the radicality of surgical treatment. A molecular genetic study of the MYCN gene carried out in recent years makes it possible to predict the further course of the disease: growth rate and possible tumor relapse.

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