Surgery of spinal tumours.

Otfrid Foerster's contribution to neurosurgery was the application of morphological and functional knowledge to the surgical therapy of neurological disease. Kuhlendahl coined the term of patho-biomechanics to explain and subsequently treat spinal pathology in a way still relevant to our surgery. The history of spinal surgery and its pioneers leads us from careful first indications to the classical problems of risks and benefit of tumour surgery in an around the spinal canal, extent of tumour resection and stability of the various spinal segments to modern techniques of intraoperative monitoring, microsurgery and stabilisation procedures. An overview of a multicentre study conducted by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie is presented. Some examples taken from our daily work are shown to illustrate the range of procedures in our spinal tumour patients.