Neurosurgery Coding Alert

Question: Please suggest ICD-9 diagnosis code for thoracic epidural mass with compression of spinal cord. The patient has a history of thymoma.

New Hampshire Subscriber 

Answer: For the epidural mass, the best diagnosis code is 239.7 (Neoplasm of unspecified nature of endocrine glands and other parts of nervous system). This diagnosis code describes a wide range of intradural and extradural lesions.  Since there is compression of spinal cord, you can also consider ICD-9 code 336.9 (Unspecified disease of spinal cord). For the history of thymoma, you report V10.29 (Personal history of malignant neoplasm of other respiratory and intrathoracic organs).

The ICD-9 code 239.7 maps to ICD-10 code D49.7 (Neoplasm of unspecified behavior of endocrine glands and other parts of nervous system). The ICD-9 code 336.9 maps 3 ICD-10 codes: G95.20 (Unspecified cord compression), G95.29 (Other cord compression), and G95.9 (Disease of spinal cord, unspecified). The code V10.29 maps to codes Z85.238 (Personal history of other malignant neoplasm of thymus) and Z85.29 (Personal history of malignant neoplasm of other respiratory and intrathoracic organs) in ICD-10.