Revision surgery for tumors of the thoracic and lumbar spine: causes, prevention, and treatment strategy

Introduction: Revision surgery in spine tumor surgery can offer peculiar challenges given the severity of the majority of these lesions and the complexity of surgical procedures that are required. Materials and Methods and Results: Based on literature review and on personal experience, surgical site infection, cerebrospinal fluid leakage, tumor recurrence and hardware failures are some of the possible causes of surgical revision in this set of patients. Conclusions: The aim of this study is to evaluate the most frequent complications that can lead to revision in spine tumor patients, to provide suggestions on how to prevent these events and to offer reasonable strategies to properly plan and perform a revision surgery.