Surgery associated with radiotherapy in patients affected by metastatic medular compression: scientific production of the health area

Introduction: The spine is the most frequent area of bone metastasis in patients with systemic neoplastic disease. The goal of its treatment is immediate decompression, in order to prevent deterioration or reverse the deficit in neurological function. Objective: To analyze the characteristics of the scientific literature on the effectiveness of surgery associated with radiotherapy to improve the neurological deficit caused by metastatic spinal cord compression. Methods: Descriptive study based on bibliometric and scientometric methods. Using both, it is possible to qualify, verify and give meaning to the data and have, as a result, a broad study about the productions of the theme in question. Articles published in the National Library of Medicine (Pubmed), Web of Science and Virtual Health Library (VHL) were used, searched using keywords obtained from the Descriptors in Health Sciences (DeCS), of the VHL. Results: The searches resulted in 131 articles. After filtering by reading titles, 100 articles were selected for reading the abstract. At the end of the collection, 15 articles were selected. Of these, the year of publication was distributed every two years for analysis, with a significant growth in 2015 and 2016. As for the origin of the studies, 60% (n = 9) had data collection developed in China, Japan or the United States of America. Regarding the gender of the sample, 57.14% of them contained the predominantly or totally male sample and 42.85% female. Regarding the histological type of tumor, there was a wide variation between studies. In some of them, the sample contained different groups of tumor diagnosis. Conclusion: The combination of surgery with postoperative radiotherapy proved to be effective and more efficient than these alone for the treatment of patients affected by metastatic neurological compression.