Clinical Features, Treatments, and Prognostic Factors of Spinal Myxopapillary Ependymoma

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the clinical characteristics and factors affecting the prognosis of myxopapillary ependymoma (MPE).

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 24 patients diagnosed with MPE who were surgically treated from January 2010 to January 2020 in the Department of Neurosurgery at Tongji Hospital (Tongji Medical School, Huazhong University of Science and Technology).

Results: Among the 24 included patients, there were 13 male and 11 female patients. The ages of the included patients ranged from 15 to 59 years old, with an average age of 35.2 years old. The Preoperative McCormick grade included 20 cases (83.3%) that were grade II and 4 cases (16.7%) that were grade III. The follow-up times ranged from 6 months to 10 years, with an average of 50.9 months. The Postoperative McCormick grade included 7 cases (29.2%) that were grade I, 4 cases (16.7%) that were grade II, 12 cases (50%) that were grade III and 1 case (4.2%) that was grade IV. The 1-year, 2-year, and 10-year recurrence rate was 8.3%, 29.2%, 41.7%, respectively. The 1-year, 2-year, and 10-year survival rate was 100%, 100%, 95.8% respectively. χ² test revealed a significant difference between the degree of surgical resection (P = 0.012 < 0.05). The Kaplan-Meier method found that the degree of tumor resection (P = 0.031 < 0.05) was related to progression-free survival. The Cox analysis revealed there was no significant independent prognostic factors.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the degree of surgical resection was a key factor that affected the prognosis and neurologic function of the included patients with MPE.

Keywords: Myxopapillary ependymoma; Prognosis; Surgical treatment.