Surgical Treatment of Spinal Chordomas

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.