What are the symptoms of spinal tumors?

Everyone must pay attention to the disease of spinal tumors, because the incidence of spinal tumors has increased in recent years. The spine is the support of our human skeleton. If there is any abnormality in the spine, it must be discovered and treated in time.

Some patients with spinal tumors feel back pain from time to time in the early stages of the disease, but they never take it seriously, always thinking that it is caused by lack of rest. As a result, the condition became more and more serious, with a very obvious lump that grew rapidly, causing unbearable local pain and impaired motor function.

1. Pain

Pain is the most common and main symptom in patients with spinal tumors. In 80% to 95% of primary spinal tumors, pain is the first symptom and sometimes the only symptom at the time of diagnosis. Possible mechanisms of pain caused by spinal tumors include: bone infiltration and destruction (especially expansion of the periosteum), compression of bone lesions, pathological fractures, spinal vertebral instability, compression and erosion of the spinal cord, nerve roots or plexuses, etc.

The timing and nature of the pain will vary depending on the nature and location of the tumor. In terms of the time of pain occurrence, pain may occur several months or years before the spinal tumor is confirmed. The course of pain from benign spinal tumors is generally longer, lasting several months or even years. For malignant spinal tumors, such as osteosarcoma, Ewing's sarcoma, or bone metastases, the pain history is relatively short. However, if a benign tumor compresses the spinal cord or nerve roots in the early stages, the pain will occur for a relatively short time. Clinical studies by Weinstein et al. The average duration of pain from the onset of symptoms to diagnosis for patients with primary benign spinal tumors is 19.3 months, the average duration for patients with malignant tumors is 10.4 months, and the average duration for patients with spinal metastases is 1-2 months, but can be up to 2 years.

Night pain is a characteristic manifestation of almost all spinal tumors and is also a common symptom in patients with spinal tumors. The main reasons are:

(1) Patients usually lie down at night, which causes relatively high venous pressure and stimulates the peripheral nerves around the tumor.

(2) At night, patients with spinal tumors have relatively more focused attention and become more sensitive to pain.

(3) Some inflammatory mediators released by tumors stimulate nerves. Coughing, sneezing, straining, or other actions that increase intra-abdominal pressure can precipitate increased pain.

2. Lump

Because spinal bone tumors mostly occur in the vertebral bodies, which are located deep and difficult to find on the body surface, patients with lumps as the first manifestation are uncommon. These tumors are mainly seen in the cervical spine or the posterior accessory structures of the spine. The masses of malignant spinal tumors grow rapidly and often compress the surrounding tissues, so local pain and discomfort are common. Metastatic spinal tumors are often discovered before they form larger masses due to the existence of primary lesions, the fact that metastatic tumors are generally more malignant, grow more rapidly, and are more likely to induce spinal pain and neurological symptoms.

3. Deformity

Spinal deformities caused by spinal tumors are not uncommon. The main mechanisms include: tumor damage to the vertebral body and (or) appendages; spasmodic reaction of tissues around the spine; and compression of surrounding structures by the large size of the tumor. For example, osteoid osteoma often presents with scoliotic deformity that is concave toward the side of the lesion, and the apex of the scoliosis is often the location of the lesion.

4. Neurological dysfunction

Spinal nerve compression can be caused by direct invasion of the tumor itself or secondary to deformity caused by tumor destruction of bony structures. Since spinal tumors are mainly located in the vertebral bodies, they often compress the pyramidal tract or anterior horn cells from the front, so the first manifestation is often motor function impairment. The clinical symptoms vary depending on the degree and location of compression of the spinal nerves, such as anterior horn syndrome, posterior horn syndrome and hemisection syndrome.