Molecular targeted therapies in advanced or metastatic chordoma patients: Facts and hypotheses

• Chordoma displays several druggable targets.
• The level of evidence supporting the use of molecularly targeted therapies remains low.
• Chordoma is an indolent tumour and tumor shrinkage under treatment is rare, classical radiological criteria for activity assessment seem not suitable.
• International collaborative efforts are highly desirable to go further.

Chordomas, derived from undifferentiated notochordal remnants, represent less than 4% of bone primary tumors. Despite surgery followed by radiotherapy, local and metastatic relapses are frequent. In case of locally advanced or metastatic chordomas, medical treatment is frequently discussed. While chemotherapy is ineffective, it would appear that some molecular targeted therapies, in particular imatinib, could slow down the tumor growth in case-reports, retrospective series, and phase I or II trials. Nineteen publications, between January 1990 and September 2014, have been found describing the activity of these targeted therapies. A systematic analysis of these publications shows that the best objective response with targeted therapies was stabilization in 52 to 69% of chordomas. Given the indolent course of advanced chordoma and because of the absence of randomized trial, the level of evidence to treat chordomas with molecular therapy is low (level III), whatever the drug. Furthermore, we could not draw firm conclusion on the activity of imatinib. Other putative targets have also been described. Therefore, further clinical trials are expected, especially with these targets. Nevertheless, it seems essential, in those future studies, to consider the naturally slow course of the disease.