Imaging of the spine in patients with malignancy.

This contribution presents an approach to the diagnosis of symptoms referable to spinal pathology in patients with known malignancy. Pain and neurological disturbance are distressing and disabling symptoms, which in patients with cancer may be a result of bony metastases, paraspinal soft tissue disease and meningeal and intra-axial spinal metastases. Imaging studies are pivotal, and typical and atypical imaging features are presented.