Spartanburg Regional now offers a procedure that can destroy tumors located in the spine that may cause severe pain in cancer patients.

When cancer metastasizes, or spreads, to other parts of the body, it can cause pain. Cancer metastases can often appear on the vertebrae, compressing the spine and causing pain. As the vertebrae weaken, compression fractures can cause severe back pain, impaired mobility and a reduced quality of life.

In the past, treatment options included pain medications, bed rest or bracing. However, those methods are temporary solutions and do not focus on the fractured vertebrae.

While open spinal surgery may be able to restore functionality to the spine, it does come with more risks and requires more time to recover, in addition, some patients may not be candidates for open surgery. A new alternative may be the solution for more patients. Enhanced vertebroplasty or kyphoplasty is an advanced procedure that uses a plasma mediated device to ablate or remove tumor tissue prior to injecting bone cement into the vertebra. This method reduces the risks and complications often found with open spinal surgery as well as providing significant pain relief.

“This procedure, combining plasma mediated tumor removal followed by vertebroplasty or kyphoplasty, has the potential to greatly improve the quality of life for these patients,” said interventional radiologist Richard Harp, M.D.

Non-surgical methods can be done today by interventional radiologists. Interventional radiology treatments can offer less risk, less pain and less recovery time compared to traditional surgery.

Interventional radiologists are board-certified physicians who specialize in minimally invasive, targeted treatments.
They offer more specialized knowledge and alternatives for less invasive treatments for many medical conditions. Real time X-rays, ultrasound and other imaging methods are used to advance a catheter in the body, usually in an artery or vein, to treat at the source of the disease in a non-surgical method.

For a physician referral, please call 560-7999 or talk to your oncologist about this procedure.