Article révisé par les pairs
Résumé : Since Guidetti and Slooff's masterbooks (1964), numerous papers have been devoted to intramedullary spinal cord tumors (IMT) and their treatment, most of them were focused on ependymomas and astrocytomas. Informed opinion was that these tumors were difficult to cure and that biopsy plus radiotherapy was the treatment of choice. Thanks to microsurgery and bipolar coagulation surgeons grew bolder and more efficient as illustrated by the contributions from Hurth or Resche on hemangioblastomas, Fischer on ependymomas, Epstein on childhood astrocytomas and Guidetti, Malis, Stein on IMT in general. Meanwhile, in the eighties, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Cavitron Ultrasonic Surgical Aspirator (CUSA) drastically modified diagnostic and therapeutic strategies of IMTs, as may be judged by the significant increase in the number of publications on this topic in current medical literature. However, no updated work of synthesis is currently available. This prompted us to publish our common experience based on 171 patients and 200 surgical procedures. Thanks to the collaboration of many colleagues of the "Société de Neurochirurgie de Langue Française" (SNCLF) who completed a questionnaire sent to them, we are now in the position to give an epidemiological estimation based on 1117 cases. This work is divided in three main parts. The first part deals with considerations common to all IMTs, the second with particular aspects specific of each tumoral type, the third with the results and concluding recommendations.

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