Conus medullaris metastasis in breast cancer: report of a case and a review of the literature.

Intramedullary spinal cord metastasis is quite rare. This report presents the case of a female patient with metastasis of the conus medullaris from breast cancer, presenting with paraplegia and sphincter dysfunction. Bladder dysfunction improved after removal of the conus mass. This report is the seventh case of conus medullaris metastasis from breast cancer and the first review of clinical outcome, survival time and other data of all these 7 cases. This study also reviewed cases of intramedullary spinal cord metastasis arising from breast cancer in regions other than the conus medullaris in the literature. Longer survival time resulted from surgery in contrast to those without surgery in the latter group.