Treatment of Spinal Metastases with Epidural Cord Compression through Corpectomy and Reconstruction via the Traditional Open Approach versus the Mini-Open Approach: A Multicenter Retrospective Study

Figure 1

Case example of a 52-year-old male with severe thoracic spinal stenosis and myelopathy due to myeloma involvement of T4. Illustrations showing the mini-open approach, demonstrating the little soft-tissue dissection (a). The thoracic magnetic resonance imaging (b-d) shows metastatic epidural spinal cord compression with tumor involvement of the T4 vertebral body. The patient underwent laminectomy, corpectomy, tumor resection, and polymethylmethacrylate reconstruction of T4, plus pedicle screw instrumentation of T2-T6. Postoperative anteroposterior and lateral radiography shows stable reconstruction (e-f). Pathological examination shows that the lesion was consistent with plasma cell myeloma (g).

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