Surgical treatment of spinal chordomas
N. Sundaresan, A. G. Huvos, G. Krol, J. M. Lane and M. Brennan
Department of Surgery, St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, NY 10019.
The clinical features and results of 34 patients with chordomas treated
over a seven-year period were analyzed. Surgical treatment consisted of
wide local excision (n = 6), marginal resection (n = 5), intralesional
resection (n = 20), and biopsy (n = 3). Eighteen patients received
postoperative radiotherapy. The local recurrence rate was 65%, with 30% of
patients developing distant metastases. With the introduction of computed
tomography, smaller tumors are currently being diagnosed; as a result, 35%
of the patients in this series are disease free, compared with 10%
described previously.
