Management of cranial chondroblastoma in adults; a pooled analysis.

OBJECTIVES: Chondroblastoma is a rare bone tumour that often affects children more than adults. The adult cranial affection is a unique presentation of the disease (less than 2%) that mandates specific management. Through this pooled-analysis, we aimed to examine this disease group and obtain reliable scientific conclusions. METHODS: The literature was searched for case-reports of cranial chondroblastoma. Afterwards, a pooled analysis was done for the selected articles. The data in question were the patient's age, gender, disease site, modalities of treatment, disease control, salvage treatment, and disease-specific survival. RESULTS: 122 case reports were retrieved from the literature. The median age at diagnosis was 38.5 years. Up to the moment, the standard of care remains complete resection. The relapse-free survival was 29.5 months, with a three-year relapse rate of 9% and disease-specific mortality of 0%. Most of the relapses were salvaged excellently with excision. The strongest predictor for relapse was the post-resection residual disease, with three-years relapse rates of 23.8% and 2.4% for positive and negative residuals, respectively. Adjuvant Radiotherapy failed to improve the relapse rates. CONCLUSION: Complete surgical excision is the standard of care. Post-surgical residual is the only adverse prognostic factor that predicts poor disease control.

Dysphagia aortica in a young patient with Behcet's Disease: Case report.

Dysphagia aortica is a rare aetiology of dysphagia resulting from an abnormality in thoracic aorta that causes extrinsic compression on the oesophagus. Dysphagia aortica includes aortic aneurysm, aortic dissection or even tortuous aorta and is seldom considered in the differential diagnosis of dysphagia. Herein, we report a 30-year-old man with Behcet's disease who presented with rapid progressive dysphagia and diagnosed as dysphagia aortica caused by saccular aortic aneurysm complicated by large para-aortic haematoma compressing the oesophagus. The case reveals the importance of early and proper identification of the rare causes of dysphagia in young adults with complaint of dysphagia and history of recurrent oral and genital ulcers in absence of obvious cardiovascular diseases.