[Clinical course and histopathology of chordomas in the ENT area]

The Chordoma is a fully malignant tumor deriving from remnants of the chorda dorsalis. In ENT it mainly appears as nasopharyngeal or parapharyngeal mass, growing slowly and only very late giving rise to severe symptoms by invading the skull base and the vertebra, thus making an effective treatment sometimes almost impossible. Histologically there are two cell-lines in the tumor, which are demonstrated and explained. These different cell-types are responsible for the sometimes varying aggressiveness of the tumor and its changing response to irradiation therapy. The symptomatology and histopathology of the lesion is discussed and an attempt is made to explain the tumor's biological behaviour according to its histological composition of two different cell-lines.