Spinal cord tumors are characterized by myelopathy, which usually consists of bilateral weakness, hyperactive reflexes, Babinski signs, and loss of sensation below the lesion. Local pain and sometimes radicular pain appear weeks or months before the myelopathy develops. Bladder and bowel functions are usually spared until late in the course of disease.
Subdural tumors are usually benign meningiomas or schwannomas.
Occasionally, leptomeningeal metastases grow large enough to cause a subdural mass. The treatment of meningiomas and schwannomas is surgery. Intramedullary tumors include ependymomas, astrocytomas, and metastases. Patients with ependymomas of the spinal cord are often cured by surgical removal of the tumors. Patients with ependymomas that arise below the spinal cord in the filum terminale can also be cured if the tumors can be totally removed by surgery.