Chordoma treatment
Surgical resection with adjuvant radiotherapy is the first-choice treatment modality.
Chordoma has a high rate of local recurrence after surgery. The best treatment paradigm is still being evaluated.
Studies reporting the use of conventional radiotherapy (CRT), stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT), proton therapy, and carbon-ion therapy were identified in several databases. A fixed- effects model was used to perform a metaanalysis of 3-, 5-, and 10-year overall survival. The χ2 test was used to compare pooled estimates for each treatment type.
Twenty-five studies were included in this meta-analysis. The results showed that the 3-, 5-, and 10-year overall survival rates were higher for SRT, proton therapy, and carbon-ion therapy than for CRT. The 10-year overall survival was higher for proton therapy than for SRT.
Zhou et al., revealed that particle therapy was more effective following surgery for chordoma than CRT. After 10 years, proton therapy was more beneficial than SRT. However, future studies should include more studies to enable accurate meta-analysis and better exploration of prognosis 1).
In 2014 the most novel finding was the identification of brachyury in the disease process 2).