Non-hepatocellular carcinoma spinal metastases

Metastases to the spine from non-hepatocellular carcinomas, such as cholangiocarcinoma and angiosarcoma, occur rarely. With improvements in oncologic care, the number of patients diagnosed with metastatic cancer is expected to increase. We performed a systematic review of the literature to assess the clinical presentation, treatment, outcome and survival of patients diagnosed with non-hepatocellular carcinoma spinal metastasis using PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, Cochrane Library and Web of Science. We identified 19 cases of spinal metastases from non-hepatocellular carcinomas that fit our pre-specified criteria. The mean age at presentation was 62.3 years and cholangiocarcinoma was the most common subtype. Patients frequently presented with pain, weakness or paraparesis and at the time of diagnosis, most of them had multi-level involvement of the spine. A majority of patients with spinal metastasis were treated either with radiation or chemotherapy or received no treatment. A minority of the reports included information on survival, which revealed a median survival of 1.5 months following diagnosis of the spinal metastasis. Although there is a paucity of published literature on non-hepatocellular carcinoma spinal metastasis, this systematic review provides descriptive clinical characteristics of these patients.