Differential diagnosis between intramedullary tumors and spinal cord malformations

Spinal cord arterio-venous shunts represent 5-9 % of all vascular pathologies of the central nervous system (CNS).Spinal cord arteriovenous malformation (SAVM) are much rarer.Intramedullary tumors (IMT) account for 10% of all spinal cord tumors.Most of them are glial tumors.IMT represent 2-4 % of all CNS tumors.Ependymoma is the most common in adults and astrocytoma is the most frequent in children and adolescents.IMT occurs most frequently in the cervical region, thoracic and lumbar regions respectively.Both pathologies may produce similar symptoms and sometimes it may be very difficult to differentiate one pathology from the other.These symptoms and signs will be discussed in this article and how to differentiate these two entities when possible according to them.This is the objective of this article.