The value of palliative spinal surgery in metastatic urogenital tumors.

There were 22 patients with vertebral metastases and impending neurologic damage from prostatic, vesical and renal cell carcinoma treated by decompressive laminectomy combined with local radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The neurological recovery was complete in the prostatic carcinoma patients (10 of 10), partial in the vesical carcinoma patients (2 of 5) and unsatisfactory in the renal cell carcinoma patients (1 of 7).