[Diagnosis and surgical treatment of hourglass shaped tumors of cervical localization].

Among 449 patients with intravertebral tumours, 35 patients (7.8%) had sand-glass shaped tumours, 19 of them being localized in the neck, which comprised 19.6% of the 97 cervical intravertebral tumours, and 45.9% of neurinomas. An analysis of the material permits to conclude that when the symptoms of spinal cord compression are combined with an extension of the intervertebral foramen, the indications for myelography for precising the diagnosis are relative. A one-stage total excision of the tumour is indicated, either via a vertebral approach, or via a bilateral approach by way of laminectomy and from the neck. Whenever the intervention has to be divided into two stages, the intravertebral node should be removed first, and the extra-vertebral one afterwards from the cervical incision, always striving to cut the interval between the two interventions down to 3-4 weeks.