Intracranial chondroid chordoma.
Chordomas are rare tumours that arise from remnants of the primitive notochord. Chondroid chordoma is believed to be a variant of chordoma. We present a patient with a chondroid chordoma presenting with an oculomotor nerve palsy. Computed tomography (CT) demonstrated a mildly enhancing mass in the parasellar region and a markedly enhanced mass in the prepontine cistern. Magnetic resonance imaging also demonstrated a moderately enhanced, dumb-bell shaped mass. The parasellar mass was removed and the oculomotor nerve palsy disappeared three months after operation. Histology of the resected specimen revealed chondroid chordoma. One year after surgery she developed a left hemiparesis. CT demonstrated haemorrhage in the prepontine tumour. The encapsulated tumour with haematoma was removed and histology revealed that the tumour was composed of only chordoma tissue without cartilaginous tissue. The tumours located in the parasellar region and prepontine cistern enhanced differently on CT.
Akai
T
T
Department of Neurosurgery, Mito National Hospital, 3-2-1 Higashihara Mito Ibaraki 310, Japan.
Sonobe
M
M
Sugita
K
K
Suzuki
K
K
Oyama
K
K
Takahashi
S
S