Objective To study the surgical approach and surgical method of thoracolumbar dumbbell spinal tumors.Methods A retrospective analysis of operation method and curative effect of 16 patients with thoracolumbar dumbbell spinal tumors,admitted to our hospital from January 2005 to May 2005,including 14 with schwanmomas and two with nerve fibromas,was performed.Japanese orthopaedic association (JOA) scale and visual analogue scale (VAS) were used to evaluate the improvement of neurological function.Results According to Asazuma's method of classifing the spinal canal tumors,the tumors could be divided into type Ⅰ,Ⅱ and Ⅲ; a total of 11 patients were included in type Ⅰ and operation through posterior median approach was chosen; two patients were included in type Ⅱ and operation through Wiltse paraspinal sacrospinalis splitting approach was chosen; three patients were included in type Ⅲ and operation through posterior approach was chosen.Sixteen patients achieved total resection.Postoperative follow-up indicated obvious nerve function improvment:JOA scale scores before surgery (17.69±1.05) were significantly lower than those after surgery (25.38±0.42,P＜0.05); VAS scores before surgery were 6.13 ±0.26 and those after surgery were 1.75±0.25,with statistically significant differences (P＜0.05).Conclusion Partition of the thoracolumbar dumbbell spinal tumors is helpful to the choice of operation methods.