Incidentally-Discovered Extraosseous Cystic Nasopharyngeal Chordoma in a Papillary Thyroid Cancer Patient

ABSTRACT

Skull base chordomas are rare, malignant tumors arising from primitive notochord remnants of the axial skeleton and comprise approximately 25–35% of all chordoma cases. Nasal endoscopy in previous case reports has characterized nasopharyngeal chordomas as firm, semi-translucent masses protruding from the posterior nasopharyngeal wall with a pink, “meaty” appearance. However, the nasopharyngeal chordoma in the present case had a soft, cystic appearance, unlike the tumors previously described. Herein, an unusual case of an incidentally discovered nasopharyngeal chordoma is reported in a patient with papillary thyroid cancer; the discovered chordoma had a benign cystic appearance with no abnormal positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) uptake.