Tumor Growth Rate as a New Predictor of Progression-Free Survival After Chordoma Surgery

BACKGROUND Currently, different postoperative predictors of chordoma recurrence have been identified. Tumor growth rate (TGR) is an image-based calculation that provides quantitative information of tumor's volume changing over time and has been shown to predict progression-free survival (PFS) in other tumor types. OBJECTIVE To explore the usefulness of TGR as a new preoperative radiological marker for chordoma recurrence. METHODS A retrospective single-institution study was carried out including patients reflecting these criteria: confirmed diagnosis of chordoma on pathological analysis, no history of previous radiation, and at least 2 preoperative thin-slice magnetic resonance images available to measure TGR. TGR was calculated for all patients, showing the percentage change in tumor size over 1 mo. RESULTS A total of 32 patients were retained for analysis. Patients with a TGR ≥ 10.12%/m had a statistically significantly lower mean PFS (P