Epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma metastasis to the thoracic spine

• Epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma (EMC) is a very rare malignancy and patients are expected to have a long survival despite metastasis.
• EMC metastasis should be considered in the differential diagnosis for some spinal lesions.
• En bloc resection may be a reasonable option for EMC metastasized to the spine.

Epithelial-myoepithelial carcinoma (EMC) is a very rare salivary gland malignancy accounting for less than 1% of salivary gland tumors, and classically arises from the parotid gland in females. Spinal cord compression caused by EMC metastasized from the parotid gland has only been described once in the literature to our knowledge. We report the first case of a patient with parotid EMC spinal metastasis undergoing a gross total resection with instrumented fusion. This case illustrates that an en bloc resection with a planned transgression through the spinal canal may be a reasonable option for EMC metastasized to the spine.