Laminar Dye Injection in Dorsal Tumor Level Localization

Abstract

Introduction Dorsal lesions localization has been always challenging with high incidence of missed level. Although development of diagnostic tools but it is not always available in many centers. Patients and Methods During the period from December 2010 to June 2013, 14 cases with dorsal intraspinal lesions were operated with preoperative localization using dye injection in the assigned laminae over the lesion. CT dorsal spine done preoperative and fluoresce was injected into the proper level lamina. Results In the 14 patients, it was easy to localize the target lamina by the color of the dye and in 13 patients it was over the lesion. There was no side effect from injecting dye locally in spine. The use of intraoperative fluoroscope was obviously limited. Conclusion Preoperative laminar dye injection is safe and effective technique in dorsal spine leveling especially in limited resource centers. Although it is little invasive but its results are much better than surface metallic localizers.