Computed tomography of intraspinal and paraspinal neoplasms.

Computed tomography (CT) has been used in the evaluation of 36 spinal neoplasms. Eleven of the 19 intraspinal and all of the 17 paraspinal tumors showed positive CT images. Computed tomography is of diagnostic value particularly in detecting calcified meningiomas, lipomas, and neurofibromas with bony changes. The size of the paraspinal tumors and the degree of bone destruction can be precisely demonstrated by CT.