Spinal cord tumors can cause paralysis

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The initial signs such as back pain, leg pain of spinal myeloma are easy to confuse with other common bone and joint diseases, leading to subjective failure to promptly examine and treat, causing unfortunate consequences. . Spinal cord tumor is considered a very dangerous disease that can compress the spinal cord, causing paralysis and rapid death.

1. What is spinal cord tumor?


Spinal myeloma is a rare but extremely dangerous disease, with a condition in which the spinal cord has tumors located in the spinal canal that cause nerve compression to the nerve structures in the spinal canal. When the tumor grows large, it will put pressure on the spinal cord and create neurological deficits in the lower spinal cord, causing the patient to have numbness, weakness, paralysis of the lower limbs or urinary incontinence. owner...

U tủy cột sống là căn bệnh tuy hiếm gặp nhưng lại vô cùng nguy hiểm
U tủy cột sống là căn bệnh tuy hiếm gặp nhưng lại vô cùng nguy hiểm

2. Stages of spinal myeloma


The first stage of spinal myeloma is when the patient has only local symptoms and nerve root symptoms are often very vague.
The pain in the spine is usually only dull and uncomfortable, the patient will not feel severe pain, but after a while the pain will spread along the range of the nerve (the location where the tumor is located). pressed up). At this time, the patient will often feel a sharp pain, like a burning sensation.
Patients with spinal myeloma in the local stage and nerve roots also have cases of no pain but only numbness, reduction or loss of sensation or weakness in a certain muscle. Patients are often subjective and skip this stage because it happens very quickly, especially for patients with metastatic tumors or malignant tumors.
After the first stage is the stage of compression of half of the spinal cord, the tumor will grow to enlarge and compress, pushing the spinal cord to the side. Patients will see symptoms of weakness or paralysis on one side, reduced or lost sensation to touch, when exposed to hot or cold environments.
Like the first stage, the phase of nerve insertion in half of the spinal cord happens very quickly, sometimes making the patient not realize that it has turned to the full-blown stage.
Patients with spinal myeloma when entering the full-blown stage will have sensory disturbances appearing on both sides of the body. At the same time, movement disorders also appear on both sides, especially in the limbs and extremities often appear contracture. When the patient moves or flexes the joints, they vibrate causing loss of control.
In addition, the urinary disorders that myeloma patients often experience in this stage can be urinary retention, urinary incontinence, difficulty urinating or sometimes hematuria and constipation.

3. Treatment of spinal myeloma


Đa số người bệnh bị u tủy cột sống đều phải tiến hành phẫu thuật để giải quyết khối u và giải phóng sự chèn ép dây thần kinh
Đa số người bệnh bị u tủy cột sống đều phải tiến hành phẫu thuật để giải quyết khối u và giải phóng sự chèn ép dây thần kinh

Most patients with spinal myeloma have to undergo surgery to solve the tumor and release the nerve compression, because neoplasms have a non-stop growth and get bigger and bigger, pressing put a lot of pressure on the marrow and nervous system.
Some patients have chemotherapy-responsive lymphomas or radiation-sensitive germ cell tumors, while most other cases have to be resolved with surgery.
Patients with extramedullary dural tumors, the surgery is quite easy because they usually stick only a small part of the nerves or the medulla oblongata. However, in many cases of patients with epidural tumors, it will be more difficult to remove all tumors because they can spread in many different directions, destroy bone and bleed a lot.
In particular, cases of epidural myeloma are often metastatic, so the patient's recovery will be poor and the remaining survival time is not long. Therefore, in this case, the doctor will have to consider whether to operate. If surgery is not beneficial, the doctor may recommend that the patient undergo chemotherapy and radiation.
This trend of less invasive surgery is widely applied, thanks to which the surgeries also become more gentle. After many surgeries to remove all spinal myeloma, it can be concluded that, for intramedullary tumors with low malignancy, just surgical removal of the tumor is complete, the patient does not need radiation or chemotherapy, the ability to Recurrence is also very low.
In summary, spinal myeloma is an extremely dangerous disease, the effectiveness of treatment will depend a lot on early or late detection of the disease. Therefore, if the body shows symptoms such as a lot of pain in the spine, weakness or paralysis of both legs, arms, numbness, etc., the patient needs to take the initiative to go to reputable medical facilities to be visited. timely examination and treatment, avoiding potentially life-threatening complications.
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