Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Complications
By Mayo Clinic staffBoth noncancerous and cancerous spinal tumors can compress spinal nerves, leading to a loss of movement or sensation below the level of the tumor and sometimes to changes in bowel and bladder function. Nerve damage is often permanent, and disabilities are likely to continue even after the tumor is removed. Depending on its location, a tumor that impinges on the spinal cord itself may be life-threatening.
- Brain and spinal tumors: Hope through research. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/brainandspinaltumors/detail_brainandspinaltumors.htm#43233060. Accessed July 25, 2009.
- Welch WC, et al. Spinal cord tumors. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed July 25, 2009.
- Donthineni R. Diagnosis and staging of spine tumors. Orthopedic Clinics of North America. 2009;40:1.
- Schiff D. Clinical features and diagnosis of epidural spinal cord compression, including cauda equina syndrome. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed July 25, 2009.
- Detailed guide: Brain / CNS tumors in adults. American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/CRI_2_3x.asp?rnav=cridg&dt=3. Accessed July 25, 2009.
- DeAngelis LM. Tumors of the central nervous system and intracranial hypertension and hypotension. In: Goldman L, et al., eds. Cecil Medicine. 23rd ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/151491959-3/0/1492/741.html?tocnode=54620820&fromURL=741.html#4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-2805-5..50204-4--cesec51_9020. Accessed July 25, 2009.
- Cole JS, et al. Metastatic epidural spinal cord compression. Lancet Neurology. 2008;7:459.
- Moynihan TJ (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Aug. 2, 2009.
