[Chondrosarcoma of the upper jaw. Apropos of a clinical case]

Initially it has been a tendency to place chondrosarcoma in the general category of osteogenic sarcoma. Jaffe et Lichtenstein claimed that the concept of chondrosarcoma as a separate entity has a firm clinical and histological basis. Chondrosarcomas may arise in peripheral long and flat bones. The maxillary location is very rare, it represents about 0,7% of the whole body. 40 well documented instances are yet counted in the literature. Reporting a personnal case, the author proceeds to a comparative study between the three varieties of maxillary sarcomas, evokes the special histogenesis in this location, he reminds the interest of bone electrocoagulation as curative treatment, and discusses the difficulty in making a prognosis 3 years after surgery without local recurrence or metastasis in this case.