Introduction:

The intramedullary tumors are not very usual and they are generated inside the tissue of the spinal cord, displacing or invading the white matter, tracts and neuronal bodies.

Objective:

To characterize patients with intradural intramedullary spinal canal tumors and seudotumors according to clinical, imaging (magnetic resonance) and histopatologic variables.

Methods:

An observational, descriptive, longitudinal and prospective study of 11 patients with clinical provisional diagnosis of intramedullary spinal canal tumor or seudotumor was carried out, confirmed by means of magnetic resonance who were assisted in the Imaging Department of Dr. Juan Bruno Zayas Alfonso Teaching General Hospital in Santiago de Cuba from January, 2014 to the same month in 2017, coming from the general hospitals of this province and Guantánamo.

Results:

In the investigation there was a prevalence of females (63.6 %), mainly in the ages of 40 to 59 (45.4 %), as well as the clinical signs of muscular weakness (100.0 %) and pain in the spine (81.8 %). According to the intensity of signs obtained in the magnetic resonance, the heterogeneous images were more frequent, predominantly in the dorsal area. Also, dorsal compressive myelopathy was notable (27.3 %) as clinical diagnosis of suspicion, while 54.5 % of the imaging diagnosis was histopathologically confirmed, with a higher percentage in the case of astrocytomas (36.4).

Conclusions:

The magnetic resonance is the radiological method of election for the identification of these tumors, since it offers an approach to the definitive diagnosis, which is corroborated by means of the pathologic study.

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