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DOI: 10.4103/0971-3026.29042
Symptomatic vertebral hemangiomas- results of treatment with radiotherapy
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Abstract
Objectives : Vertebral hemangiomas are benign vascular lesions occurring in spine. Though vertebral hemangiomas are frequently seen, they are rarely symptomatic. Pain is the commonest symptom. There is no agreement on single treatment modality for symptomatic lesions. Surgery, intralesional injection of absolute alcohol, methyl methacrylate injection are few methods used to treat them. Radiotherapy has been shown effective in many studies in terms of pain relief and at times in cord compression too. Results of radiotherapy in symptomatic vertebral hemangiomas treated in our centre are analyzed. Materials and methods: Six patients with symptomatic vertebral hemangiomas were treated with external radiotherapy to a dose of 36-40 Gy. Four patients had only pain as their symptom. Two patients had additional neurological deficits with paraperesis at presentation. Result in terms of pain relief was assessed at the end of RT and during follow up. Median follow up was four and half months. Results : Out of six patients, pain relief was seen in four patients who had only pain as their symptom. There was neither pain relief nor improvement in neurological deficits in remaining two patients. Conclusion : Radiotherapy is an effective and simple modality of treatment for symptomatic vertebral hemangiomas where pain is the main symptom without neurological deficits. It is non invasive and safe.
Publication History
Received: 31 March 2005
Accepted: 10 October 2005
Article published online:
02 August 2021
© 2006. Indian Radiological Association. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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