Clinical Findings and Results of Surgical Resection in 19 Cases of Spinal Osteoid Osteoma

Abstract

Study Design: Descriptive cases series. Purpose: To evaluate clinical findings and results of conventional surgery in patients with spinal osteoid osteoma (OO). Overview of Literature: OO is a rare benign tumor with spinal involvement rate of about 10-20. Methods: This descriptive study was conducted on 19 patients (11 males and 8 females with an average age of 19.8 years) with documented histopathological and imaging findings of OO referred to a university hospital. Neurologic symptoms and pain were scored before and after the open surgical excision. Data were analyzed by SPSS ver. 16 software using chi-square and significance level of 0.05. Results: The most common complaint was back or neck pain (84.2) and in 68.4 spinal deformity (mostly scoliosis) shown with an average cobb angle of 21 degrees at presentation. The sites of involvement were 35 in the lumbar, 35 in the thoracic, 25 in the cervical, and 5 in the sacrum. Lamina was the most common site (50) of involvement with predilection for the right side (p=0.001). All patients were treated by conventional surgical excision with a complete recovery of pain and deformity. No recurrence occurred after a mean follow up of 44.5 months, but 4 of 19 cases instrumented because of induced instability. In one case there were two levels of involvement (C7-T1) simultaneously. Interestingly, 10 out of 19 of our cases belonged to a specific race (Bakhtiari). Conclusions: Surgical intra-lesional curettage is potentially an effective method without any recurrence, which can lead to spontaneous scoliosis recovery and pain relief. Race may be a potential risk factor for spinal (OO).