Table 2.

Comparison of different articles published in the literature on multilevel en bloc spondylectomy

Study	Number of resected levels	Total number of patients	Recurrence (number of patients)	Margin quality	Survival (number of patients)	Complications (number of patients)	Anterior reconstruction
Boriani et al. [1]	2 (n = 24) 3 (n = 5) 4 (n =1) 5 (n = 2) 6 (n = 1)	33	21/134 (all resections) (15.7%); no comparison given of recurrences between single and multilevel resections	Not mentioned	> 50% of patients alive without evidence of disease	Multilevel resections not significant predictors of minor complications; combined approach and multilevel resections independent predictors of major complications	Carbon cages; no failure of anterior reconstruction
Liljenqvist et al. [13]	2 (n = 3) 3 (n = 1) 4 (n = 1)	5	1	1 wide 3 marginal 1 intralesional	2 alive with disease 2 alive without disease 1 died of disease	1 complete paraplegia postoperatively	Expandable titanium ring cages; no cage subsidence or mechanical failures
Kawahara et al. [11]	3 (n = 3)	3	None	Wide at all areas except intralesional at the pedicle	1 died without evidence of disease 2 alive without evidence of disease	Transient weakness in knee extension	Moss cages with autograft; no failures
Disch et al. [5]	2 (n = 7) 3 (n = 9) 4 (n = 3) 5 (n = 1)	20	1	13 marginal 7 wide	13 with no evidence of disease 5 alive with disease 2 alive without evidence of disease	7 minor and 6 major; 17 patients alive and walking without any support	Carbon cages; no implant-related complications or cage subsidence
Our study	2 (n = 19) 3 (n = 15) 4 (n = 3) 5 (n = 1)	38	3	9 wide (23%) 25 marginal (65%) 4 intralesional (12%)	31 (81%) alive without evidence of disease 3 alive with evidence of disease 2 died of disease 2 died from complications	14 major and 22 minor in 25 patients; all living patients recovered from their complications at final followup	Carbon cages in 30; autograft and allograft only in 8; no cage-related complications