It is generally accepted that there is a high rate of local recurrence following surgical excision of chordoma of the sacrum, even if the margins of excision appear clear. There is uncertainty as to whether the addition of postoperative radiotherapy may decrease the risk of local recurrence, particularly if there are close or involved margins. We aimed to determine the effect of conventional radiotherapy, in the post-operative setting, on the effect of local recurrence, metastases and patient survival in a multi-centre study. 57 patients were identified from the combined databases of the RNOH and ROH, who underwent surgical excision of a primary sacral chordoma and who had a minimum of three years follow-up. There were 17 women and 40 men, with a median age of 64 (25-81 range). Median tumour length was 10cm (2-20 range). 22 of the 57 patients died. Survival was 60% at 5 years and 45% at ten years. 28 of the 57 patients developed local recurrence (49%) and margins of excision did not affect the rates of local recurrence. Adjuvant radiotherapy was used in 9 patients, to with intra-lesional resections, five marginal and two wide. Without radiotherapy the local recurrence rate was 45% at five years. With radiotherapy, the local recurrence rate was 62.5% at five years. There were no statistically significant differences between the two.Methods
Results
