Metastatic disease of the cervical spine. A review.

The treatment of cervical metastatic disease requires a multidisciplinary team approach to evaluation and management and demands consideration of multiple factors before a regimen is accepted. The patient's overall functioning and medical status, life expectancy, history of treatment, tumor type, and location within the cervical spine and individual vertebrae all must be evaluated carefully. The majority of lesions will be amenable to nonoperative aggressive modalities aimed at shrinking tumor size and halting growth. Surgical intervention is limited to specific indications, including spinal instability, progressive neurologic deterioration from bony collapse and compression, intractable pain, and failure of conservative means of treatment.