Role of Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy in the Management of Spinal Cord Tumors

Spinal cord tumors are either primary or metastatic with 5 percent intra medullary and 90 percent in epidural. These are symptoms such as sphincter dysfunction, motor and sensory deficiency and pain. Pain aggravates overnight and may result in the total spinal cord transection syndrome. Depending on the in-growth of the tumors (metastatic epidural tumors), they can cause root pain, bowel and bladder disorder, unsteady gait as well as paraplegia or paraparesis. This paper compares the outcome of immunotherapy, chemotherapy and radiation to patients with malignancies on the spinal cord. Concentrating on patient history, tumor characteristics, and therapy administration, the survey assesses the effectiveness of different treatment methods in the context of neurological consequences, toxicity rates, survival rates, and local disease control by using sources including PubMed and Google Scholar. The findings of all the articles brought the idea that surgical resection is, indeed, the aim of care, and in most cases, extra adjuvant treatment involves chemotherapy with radiation therapy, depending on the pathogenesis of the tumor and its specific reasons.  Also, progressive-free survival is shown to lengthen with radiotherapy and surgery in isolated cases, and radiotherapy and chemotherapy combined are shown to stabilize recurrent ependymomas. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of chemotherapy in the treatment of certain cancers, e.g. astrocytoma is doubtful.  The situation is altered by new techniques that have demonstrated outstanding results as regards local control with minimal toxicity such as carbon-ion radiotherapy, stereotactic radiosurgery, and additional radiations therapy. New chemotherapeutic agents, Dordaviprone (ONC201) in patients and in H3 K27M-mutant diffuse glioma, which is an untreatable cancer with only the radiation therapy option to rely on.as summary of the trials is to come up with a protocol to avoid neurological impairments and surgical difficulties because an incision of the chord may ruin columns to the spinal cord. Even in this progressive situation, the best treatment for spinal cord tumors is still unclear so, it needs more studies in large populations and prolonged duration and to compare advantages and disadvantages of all interventions to establish definitive management paths.