Management of Sinonasal Chondrosarcoma: A Systematic Review of 158 Patients

Introduction: This study reviews the published outcomes related to management of sinonasal chondrosarcoma. Clinical presentation, demographics, radiographic diagnosis, treatment, and management outcomes of this uncommon disease are reported.

Methods: A systematic review of studies for sinonasal chondrosarcoma from 1950 to 2012 was conducted. A PubMed search for articles related to this condition, along with bibliographies of the selected articles was performed. Articles were examined for patient data that reported survivability. Demographic data, disease site, treatment strategies, follow-up, outcome, and survival were analyzed.

Results: A total of 63 journal articles were included, comprising 158 cases of sinonasal chondrosarcoma. The average follow-up was 77 months (range, 1 to 325.2 months). Surgical resection was the most common treatment modality with a 5-year survival of 74.4%. A combination of surgery and radiation therapy was the second most commonly used treatment modality with a 5-year survival of 83.2%. The overall 5-year survival rate for all treatment modalities was 76.5%.

Conclusions: This review contains the largest pool of sinonasal chondrosarcoma patients to date and provides support for the use of aggressive surgical resection of this condition. The use of adjunctive radiotherapy for prevention of local recurrence after subtotal or total resection did not show significant improvement. However, the use of adjuvant radiotherapy trended toward a higher 5-year survival.