Operative treatment of sacrococcygeal chordoma. A review of twenty-one cases.

Between 1972 and 1992, twenty-one patients had a primary operation for the treatment of a sacrococcygeal chordoma; seventeen had had a diagnostic biopsy elsewhere. The average age at the time of the operation was fifty-five years (range, six to seventy-eight years); fourteen patients were male and seven were female. In all patients, a posterior approach was used, even for resections at the cephalic levels of the sacrum. In addition, sixteen of the twenty-one patients were treated with adjuvant radiation therapy. Four patients died; three died of metastatic chordoma. Of the remaining seventeen patients, fifteen were apparently free of disease and had not had a local recurrence at the time of the latest follow-up examination. The average duration of follow-up for these fifteen patients was four and one-half years. Of the nine patients who were followed for at least five years, seven were disease-free at the latest follow-up evaluation. Of the seven patients in whom both second sacral roots were the most caudad nerve-roots spared, four had normal bladder control and five had normal bowel control. Of the four patients in whom the most caudad nerve-roots spared were the first sacral or more cephalic roots, all had impaired bladder control, one had impaired bowel control, and three had a colostomy.