Fascin expression in skull base chordoma: correlation with tumor recurrence and dura erosion

Skull base chordomas are invasive tumors, with high rate of local recurrence even when totally extracted. The aggressive biological behavior in chordoma remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between fascin expression and tumor biological behavior in skull base chordoma. Using immunohistochemical techniques, we investigated the expression of fascin in 34 patients with skull base chordomas (19 primary tumors and 20 recurrent tumors). Correlation between fascin expression and clinicopathological factors such as patient's age, sex, tumor locations, and fascin expression in recurrent tumor and in tumor with dura mater erosion was analyzed. Various extent of fascin expression was observed in all tumors. There was a higher fascin expression in recurrent chordoma than in primary chordoma, and the difference was statistically significant (p=0.031). No difference of fascin expression was found between histology types. Interestingly, in 8 tumors where the cranial base dura was eroded, there was a high level of fascin expression (p=0.047). These immunohistochemical findings suggest that fascin expression was correlated with tumor recurrence and high invasiveness, and that fascin overexpression may play an important role in the biologic behavior of skull base chordomas.