Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Symptoms
By Mayo Clinic staffDepending on the location and type of tumor, various signs and symptoms can develop, especially as a tumor grows and impinges on your spinal cord or on the nerve roots, blood vessels or bones of your spine. Signs and symptoms may include:
- Back pain, often radiating to other parts of your body and worse at night
- Loss of sensation or muscle weakness, especially in your legs
- Difficulty walking, sometimes leading to falls
- Decreased sensitivity to pain, heat and cold
- Loss of bowel or bladder function
- Paralysis that may occur in varying degrees and in different parts of your body, depending on which nerves are compressed
- Scoliosis or other spinal deformity resulting from a large, but noncancerous tumor
Back pain, especially in the middle or lower back, is the most frequent symptom of both noncancerous and cancerous spinal tumors. The pain may be worse at night or on awakening. It also may spread beyond your spine to your hips, legs, feet or arms and may become more severe over time in spite of treatment.
Spinal tumors progress at different rates. In general, cancerous tumors grow more quickly, whereas noncancerous tumors may develop very slowly, sometimes existing for years or even decades before causing problems.
When to see a doctor
Most back pain is not the result of a spinal tumor. But because early diagnosis and treatment are important for many back problems, see your doctor about your back pain if:
- It's persistent
- It's not activity related
- It gets worse at night
- It isn't relieved by over-the-counter analgesics
Seek immediate medical attention if you experience:
- Progressive muscle weakness or numbness in your legs
- Changes in bowel or bladder function
- Brain and spinal tumors: Hope through research. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/brainandspinaltumors/detail_brainandspinaltumors.htm#43233060. Accessed July 25, 2009.
- Welch WC, et al. Spinal cord tumors. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed July 25, 2009.
- Donthineni R. Diagnosis and staging of spine tumors. Orthopedic Clinics of North America. 2009;40:1.
- Schiff D. Clinical features and diagnosis of epidural spinal cord compression, including cauda equina syndrome. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed July 25, 2009.
- Detailed guide: Brain / CNS tumors in adults. American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/CRI_2_3x.asp?rnav=cridg&dt=3. Accessed July 25, 2009.
- DeAngelis LM. Tumors of the central nervous system and intracranial hypertension and hypotension. In: Goldman L, et al., eds. Cecil Medicine. 23rd ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/151491959-3/0/1492/741.html?tocnode=54620820&fromURL=741.html#4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-2805-5..50204-4--cesec51_9020. Accessed July 25, 2009.
- Cole JS, et al. Metastatic epidural spinal cord compression. Lancet Neurology. 2008;7:459.
- Moynihan TJ (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Aug. 2, 2009.
