Metastatic tumors are the most common tumors of the spinal cord and can be epidural, pleural, or, rarely, intramedullary. Spinal cord compression due to epidural metastases is a neurological emergency and should be diagnosed quickly because the pre-treatment neurological status has a great influence on the post-treatment outcome.

Cancer patients may develop myelopathy as a side effect of cancer treatment (systemic chemotherapy, intrathecal chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or radiation therapy), spinal cord infections due to immunodeficiency, and myelopathy due to medically induced surgical causes. The following sections describe spinal cord disease caused by chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and radiation therapy.

Bone-derived spinal tumors such as osteosarcoma, plasmacytoma, chondrosarcoma, and chordoma are epidural and relatively uncommon compared with spinal metastatic lesions and often present are isolated lesions.