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Neurological Aspects of Spinal Cord Tumors

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Spinal Cord Tumors

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Abstract

This chapter discusses neurological aspects of spinal cord tumors, including clinical symptoms and syndromes, examination techniques, and diagnostic modalities. An emphasis is placed on earlier disease diagnosis as spinal cord tumors are known for delayed diagnoses. Usual causes for this delay consist of slow progression, an incomplete physical examination or misinterpretation of exam findings, late pursuit of imaging, imaging at the incorrect level, or nonspecific symptoms—such as back pain—that is misconstrued as the more prevalent degenerative spine disease. Every physician should maintain an elevated level of suspicion of spinal cord tumors and take the appropriate steps toward diagnosis, until neoplastic disease is definitively ruled out.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Xin S. Xin, DO and Dr. Ha Son Nguyen, MD for their contribution to this work.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA

    Tania Hassanzadeh MD

  2. Department of Neurology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, USA

    Sushma Bellamkonda MD & Andrei V. Alexandrov MD

  3. California Institute of Neuroscience, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA

    Sajid S. Suriya MD

  4. National Skull Base Foundation, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA

    Farzad H. Adl MD & Martin M. Mortazavi MD

Authors
  1. Tania Hassanzadeh MD
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  2. Sushma Bellamkonda MD
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  3. Sajid S. Suriya MD
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  4. Farzad H. Adl MD
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  5. Andrei V. Alexandrov MD
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  6. Martin M. Mortazavi MD
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, USA

    Kenan I. Arnautović

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI, USA

    Ziya L. Gokaslan

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Hassanzadeh, T., Bellamkonda, S., Suriya, S.S., Adl, F.H., Alexandrov, A.V., Mortazavi, M.M. (2019). Neurological Aspects of Spinal Cord Tumors. In: Arnautović, K.I., Gokaslan, Z.L. (eds) Spinal Cord Tumors. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99438-3_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99438-3_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-99437-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-99438-3

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