Abstract:

Spinal metastasis is a serious complication of malignant tumors. With the improvement of survival rate, the incidence of spinal metastasis is increasing. Decompressive surgery combined with postoperative radiotherapy can significantly improve the functional prognosis and quality of life of patients, therefore decompressive surgery combined with postoperative radiotherapy has become a priority treatment option for patients with spinal metastasis, as compared with radiotherapy alone. However, surgical complications are still a serious problem. According to the occurrence time of complications, complications can be divided into intraoperative complications and postoperative complications. Intraoperative complications mainly include spinal cord nerve injury, cerebrospinal fluid leakage, vascular injury and peripheral organ injury and so on. Postoperative complications mainly include failure of internal fixation, infection of surgical incision instability, pseudoarthrosis, local recurrence of tumor and other systemic complications. This review will introduce the surgical complications and related risk factors of spinal metastases, in order to provide reference and basis for preventing and avoiding the complications of spinal metastases.

Key words: Spinal metastasis, Complications, Spinal cord injury, Failure of internal fixation, Surgical incision infection