Management of cranial chondroblastoma in adults; a pooled analysis

Abstract

Objectives: Chondroblastoma is a rare bone tumour that often affects children more than adults. The adult cranial affection is a unique presentation of the disease (less than 2%) that mandates specific management. Through this pooled-analysis, we aimed to examine this disease group and obtain reliable scientific conclusions.

Methods: The literature was searched for case-reports of cranial chondroblastoma. Afterwards, a pooled analysis was done for the selected articles. The data in question were the patient's age, gender, disease site, modalities of treatment, disease control, salvage treatment, and disease-specific survival.

Results: 122 case reports were retrieved from the literature. The median age at diagnosis was 38.5 years. Up to the moment, the standard of care remains complete resection. The relapse-free survival was 29.5 months, with a three-year relapse rate of 9% and disease-specific mortality of 0%. Most of the relapses were salvaged excellently with excision. The strongest predictor for relapse was the post-resection residual disease, with three-years relapse rates of 23.8% and 2.4% for positive and negative residuals, respectively. Adjuvant Radiotherapy failed to improve the relapse rates.

Conclusion: Complete surgical excision is the standard of care. Post-surgical residual is the only adverse prognostic factor that predicts poor disease control.

Keywords: Chondroblastoma; Cranial chondroblastoma; Mandibular chondroblastoma; Skull chondroblastoma; Temporal chondroblastoma.