Surgery for Metastatic Spinal Disease in Octogenarians and Above: Analysis of 78 Patients

STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective Cohort Study. OBJECTIVE: Octogenarians living with spinal metastases are a challenging population to treat. Our objective was to identify the rate, types, management, and predictors of complications and survival in octogenarians following surgery for spinal metastases. METHODS: A retrospective review of a prospectively collected cohort of patients aged 80 years or older who underwent surgery for metastatic spinal tumor treatment between 2008 and 2019 were included. Demographic, intraoperative, complications, and postoperative follow-up data was collected. Cox proportional hazards regression and logistic regression were used to associate variables with overall survival and postoperative complications, respectively. RESULTS: 78 patients (mean 83.6 years) met inclusion criteria. Average operative time and blood loss were 157 minutes and 615 mL, respectively. The median length of stay was 7 days. The overall complication rate was 31% (N = 24), with 21% considered major and 7% considered life-threatening or fatal. Blood loss was significantly associated with postoperative complications (OR = 1.002; P = 0.02) and mortality (HR = 1.0007; P = 0.04). Significant associations of increased risk of death were also noted with surgeries with decompression, and cervical/cervicothoracic index level of disease. For deceased patients, median time to death was 4.5 months. For living patients, median follow-up was 14.5 months. The Kaplan-Meier based median overall survival for the cohort was 11.6 months (95% CI: 6.2-19.1). CONCLUSIONS: In octogenarians undergoing surgery with instrumentation for spinal metastases, the median overall survival is 11.6 months. There is an increased complication rate, but only 7% are life-threatening or fatal. Patients are at increased risk for complications and mortality particularly when performing decompression with stabilization, with increasing intraoperative blood loss, and with cervical/cervicothoracic tumors.