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Surgical Management of Chordoma of the Cervical Spine

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Chordoma of the Spine

Abstract

Chordomas are rare primary bone tumors of the axial skeleton that are highly prone to local recurrence and eventual metastasis. Among chordomas, cervical chordomas are rare and present an immense challenge for management. Best available evidence indicates that the preferred treatment of cervical chordomas is an aggressive surgical approach with en bloc surgical resection in order to achieve negative surgical margins. Negative surgical margins are associated with decreased local recurrence rates and potentially increased survival. The inherently complex anatomy of the cervical spine dictates that en bloc resections for cervical chordomas are performed in multidisciplinary fashion. Appropriate oncologic resections of cervical chordomas are usually performed in a multi-staged posterior-anterior approach requiring meticulous planning to minimize the associated high morbidity rates of these technically demanding operations.

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Abbreviations

C:

Cervical

CT:

Computed tomography

MR:

Magnetic resonance

T:

Thoracic

WBB:

Weinstein-Boriani-Biagini

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Correspondence to Nicolas Dea .

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Ayling, O.G.S., Dea, N. (2021). Surgical Management of Chordoma of the Cervical Spine. In: Sciubba, D.M., Schwab, J.H. (eds) Chordoma of the Spine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76201-8_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76201-8_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-76200-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-76201-8

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