Successful chemoradiation therapy for high-grade skull base chondrosarcoma in a child.

High-grade chondrosarcoma in the skull base has been known to be extremely refractory to adjuvant therapy. We report successful chemoradiation therapy for skull base chondrosarcoma in a child. The patient was a 6-year-old boy with an invasive skull base tumor. In spite of gross total removal of the tumor, it recurred 1 month after surgery. Following an intra-arterial injection of adriamycin (10 mg), the second gross total removal was carried out. At the end of the operation, cisplatin (20 mg) was locally injected into the surgical cavity. The patient was further given a total of six courses of systemic chemotherapy in combination with adriamycin (30 mg/m2) and cisplatin (100 mg/m2) and 55 Gy focal irradiation. One year after the most recent surgery, the patient is in complete remission. The efficacy of adjuvant therapy of this rare tumor is discussed.