Abstract
Recently several excellent reviews have served to direct attention to an interesting group of tumors, the chordomas. A chordoma is a neoplasm of notochordal origin. It arises from the embryonic remains of the chorda dorsalis, the primitive axial skeleton of a vertebrate, which is derived from the entoderm. The notochordal cells become surrounded by the bodies of the vertebrae and soon are confined to the central portions of the intervertebral disks. Such cells may escape encasement by cartilage during development or conceivably as a result of trauma. Theoretically, a chordoma may be produced at any point along the axial skeleton where notochordal cells are found. The chordomas have been classified as (1) cranial, (2) vertebral and (3) sacrococcygeal. They have been reported as occurring in various locations in the following order of frequency: in the sacrococcygeal region, in ninety-one cases; in the spheno-occipital region, in fifty-two cases; in
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