Edited by
ROBERT F. MCLAIN

2006

Comprehensive Care

Recent advances in medical treatment have dramatically changed our approach to many forms of cancer. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our approach to patients with cancer of the spinal column. A scant 30 years ago, spinal tumors were considered largely untreatable. Tumor resection was considered futile, if not mutilating, and radiotherapy was limited in dose and approach to what the spinal cord could bear. Diagnosis often came late, when treatment could only be brought to bear on the sequelae of tumor growth—spinal cord compression and mechanical instability and pain.