Two cases of intraspinal thoracolumbar tumours with meningeal involvement in boys aged 10.5 and 12 years are presented. Medical history of both patients comprised headaches and back pains lasting for some weeks and months before admission. Because of the significant extension of the neoplastic process, one patient was disqualified from tumour resection and was administered with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The second patient received partial tumour resection and supplementary intense chemotherapy. Both children died of disease progression after 2 and 15 months after first symptoms occurrence, respectively. Autopsy revealed malignant gliomas with extensive meningeal involvement as well as neoplasm dissemination within central nervous system via cerebro-spinal fluid in both cases. Vertebral pain is a rare neurological symptom in children, requiring particular attention and thorough radiological examination. It needs to be stressed that headaches may be also the first symptom of the tumour located within vertebral column. 

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Spinal pain syndrome and headache as initial manifestation of spinal cord tumour – a report of two cases

Joanna Stefanowicz, Anna Szołkiewicz, Ewa Iżycka-Świeszewska, Elżbieta Drożyńska, Ewa Szutowicz-Zielińska, Ewa Bień, Katarzyna Połczyńska, Agata Maciejewska, Anna Balcerska

Affiliation and address for correspondence
Aktualn Neurol 2007, 7 (2), p. 127-131
Abstract

Two cases of intraspinal thoracolumbar tumours with meningeal involvement in boys aged 10.5 and 12 years are presented. Medical history of both patients comprised headaches and back pains lasting for some weeks and months before admission. Because of the significant extension of the neoplastic process, one patient was disqualified from tumour resection and was administered with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The second patient received partial tumour resection and supplementary intense chemotherapy. Both children died of disease progression after 2 and 15 months after first symptoms occurrence, respectively. Autopsy revealed malignant gliomas with extensive meningeal involvement as well as neoplasm dissemination within central nervous system via cerebro-spinal fluid in both cases. Vertebral pain is a rare neurological symptom in children, requiring particular attention and thorough radiological examination. It needs to be stressed that headaches may be also the first symptom of the tumour located within vertebral column. 

Keywords
vertebral pain, spinal cord tumours, malignant gliomas, children

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