Chondrosarcoma Skull Base: A Case Report

Introduction: Chondrosarcomas are primary malignant bone tumor that rarely occurs in the head and neck region. Squash cytology of skull base neoplasm shows atypical chondrocytes and myx-oid stroma, which suggests many possibilities like chordoma, chordoid glioma, chordoid meningioma and chondrosarcoma. Isocitrate dehydrogenase gene (IDH) mutations have been reported in 50% to 60% of the head and neck region chondrosarcoma. Case Presentation: A 37-year-old female came to the outpatient department and complaint of difficul-ty in walking and swaying to the right side for one year. The radiology was suggestive of right-sided trigeminal schwannoma. However, the squash cytology showed the presence of necrosis, and pink to bluish-coloured myxoid stroma. The tumor cells were pleomorphic and had a hyperchromatic nucleus, hyalinized condensed to granular cytoplasm. The histopathological examination of intraoperative soft tissue showed the presence of cellular lobules of atypical chondrocytes arranged in the myxoid back-ground. The features were of Chondrosarcoma. No parenchymal invasion was found. Conclusion: This case report aims to create awareness about a rare tumor, which rarely forms a differ-ential diagnosis for skull base neoplasms. As chondrosarcoma are immunoreactive to IDH1 so this marker can be useful in clinching the diagnosis in conjunction with other immunohistochemical mark-ers in a small biopsy from skull base neoplasms.