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Spinal extra-dural metastasis from Merkel cell carcinoma: a rare cause of paraplegia

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Abstract

We report a rare case of Merkel cell carcinoma with extra-dural spinal metastasis causing paraplegia. There are only four reported cases in literature. A 57-year-old lady presented with a breast lump, multiple truncal skin swellings, low back pain and rapidly progressive paraplegia. MRI showed multiple epidural soft tissue masses causing neural compression. A biopsy from the truncal skin lesion was diagnosed as Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC). Posterior decompression and tumor debulking at all three sites of neural compression was performed. Histopathology of the epidural tumor was consistent with MCC and the diagnosis was confirmed by immuno-histochemistry staining for cytokeratin-20. She was started on chemotherapy and radiotherapy. One month after diagnosis she died due to extensive metastasis. The short term palliative response seen in our patient demonstrates the poor prognosis for patients with spinal metastasis.

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None of the authors has any potential conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Orthopaedics and Spine Surgery, Ganga Hospital, 313, Mettupalayam Road, Coimbatore, 641 011, Tamil Nadu, India

    Kamath Vijay, Ajoy P. Shetty & S. Rajasekaran

  2. Microbiological laboratory, Coimbatore, 641 002, Tamil Nadu, India

    Krishna Venkateswaran

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  1. Kamath Vijay
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  2. Krishna Venkateswaran
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  3. Ajoy P. Shetty
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  4. S. Rajasekaran
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Correspondence to S. Rajasekaran.

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Vijay, K., Venkateswaran, K., Shetty, A.P. et al. Spinal extra-dural metastasis from Merkel cell carcinoma: a rare cause of paraplegia. Eur Spine J 17 (Suppl 2), 267–270 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-007-0544-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-007-0544-2

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