Abstract
Introduction: The spine is the most frequent area of bone metastasis in patients with systemic neoplastic disease. The goal of its treatment is immediate decompression, in order to prevent deterioration or reverse the deficit in neurological function. Objective: To analyze the characteristics of the scientific literature on the effectiveness of surgery associated with radiotherapy to improve the neurological deficit caused by metastatic spinal cord compression. Methods: Descriptive study based on bibliometric and scientometric methods. Using both, it is possible to qualify, verify and give meaning to the data and have, as a result, a broad study about the productions of the theme in question. Articles published in the National Library of Medicine (Pubmed), Web of Science and Virtual Health Library (VHL) were used, searched using keywords obtained from the Descriptors in Health Sciences (DeCS), of the VHL. Results: The searches resulted in 131 articles. After filtering by reading titles, 100 articles were selected for reading the abstract. At the end of the collection, 15 articles were selected. Of these, the year of publication was distributed every two years for analysis, with a significant growth in 2015 and 2016. As for the origin of the studies, 60% (n = 9) had data collection developed in China, Japan or the United States of America. Regarding the gender of the sample, 57.14% of them contained the predominantly or totally male sample and 42.85% female. Regarding the histological type of tumor, there was a wide variation between studies. In some of them, the sample contained different groups of tumor diagnosis. Conclusion: The combination of surgery with postoperative radiotherapy proved to be effective and more efficient than these alone for the treatment of patients affected by metastatic neurological compression.
Highlights
The spine is the most frequent area of bone metastasis in patients with systemic neoplastic disease
What did the researchers do and find? The researchers carried out a descriptive study using bibliometric and scientometric methods and found that the combination of surgery with postoperative radiotherapy is effective and more efficient than these alone for the treatment of patients affected by metastatic neurological compression
What do these findings mean? Decompression surgery and postoperative radiotherapy was mostly palliative. Some factors such as individual treatment strategy, according to the histology of the primary tumor, plan of treatment strategies carried out in a multidisciplinary manner, risk-benefit of radiotherapy, assessment of the degree of spinal instability, improvement in communication and referral between specialists in oncology showed an increase in the survival of these patients
Summary
The spine is the most frequent area of bone metastasis in patients with systemic neoplastic disease[1]. Vertebral involvement in such patients is associated with worse morbidity and mortality rates, impairing prognosis and quality of life. More aggressive treatments aimed at the tumor cell, associated with efficient and less invasive surgical techniques are essential in this process. This improvement in survival has increased the diagnosis and monitoring of metastatic lesions in the spine, making spinal cord compression a more common clinical entity[2]
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