Parasagittal osteotomy for en bloc resection of multilevel cervical chordomas.

Abstract

En bloc resection of chordoma has been shown to be critical for prolonging long-term survival and disease-free intervals in patients. Cervical spine chordomas pose special challenges because of the vertebral arteries and critical nerve roots involved. Multilevel chordomas pose even greater challenges because of the need to remove multiple segments of the spine in 1 piece without tumor violation. Although there have been 2 case reports describing multilevel spondylectomy for cervical chordoma, to the authors' knowledge, there are no reports of parasagittal osteotomies for en bloc resection of multilevel cervical chordomas. The use of these osteotomies allows us to avoid intralesional resection and adhere to the oncological principle of en bloc tumor excision. The authors report their management of 3 multilevel cervical chordomas and describe their technique of en bloc tumor removal using parasagittal osteotomy.