A rare case of skin metastasis from a chordoma.

Chordoma is an uncommon, indolent malignant tumor arising from notochordal remnants. The incidence of distant metastasis varies between 30 and 40% in different series. Even though local involvement of the skin by direct invasion of chordoma is common, distant skin metastasis are rare, with less than 30 cases reported in the literature. The present clinical case illustrates the slow-growing natural history of a sacral chordoma, which evolved with lung metastasis, followed three years later by skin metastasis, thus giving us the opportunity to review the diagnostic approach, as well as the clinical and histopathological characteristics of this rare tumor.