An Evaluation of the Diagnosis and Treatment of Chordoma.

Improved methods of diagnosis have indicated that chordoma more frequently affects the central nervous system than was previously suspected. For example, in a large neurosurgical service, one can now expect to see one or two cases a year. The world literature in 1960, derived mostly from isolated case reports, mentioned 548 cases of chordoma in the following locations: 240 intracranial, 81 vertebral, and 227 sacrococcygeal (Forti and Venturini, 1960). Few large series, however, have been published from single institutions (Dahlin and MacCarty, 1952; Poppen and King, 1952; Congdon. 1952). This paper presents all histologically confirmed cases of chordoma, 30 in number, seen at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Centre since 1927.