Characteristics and functional outcomes of chordoma patients admitted for inpatient rehabilitation

Purpose: To describe the population and functional changes observed after an inpatient rehabilitation facility stay in chordoma patients Materials and Methods: We conducted a consecutive series retrospective review of patients with chordoma, admitted to an academic inpatient rehabilitation facility after surgical resection from 2010 to 2015. Information regarding demographic, tumor- and surgery-specific data, lengths of stay, complications, admission and discharge functional independence measure scores was collected.

Results: A total of 40 patients with a diagnosis of chordoma were admitted to an inpatient rehabilitation facility postoperatively were included for analysis. Thirty-three patients had initial resection of chordoma, seven patients had resection of recurrent chordoma, and eight patients had metastatic disease on admission to an inpatient rehabilitation facility. The average change in total and motor functional independence measure scores after an inpatient rehabilitation facility stay was 33.7 and 26.1, respectively. The acute hospital transfer rate was 32.5% and the postoperative complication rate was 62.5%.

Conclusions: This study is the first to describe the population and functional improvement in the chordoma population who are admitted to an inpatient rehabilitation facility postoperatively. While there is a high rate of acute hospital transfer and postoperative complications, these values are comparable to prior studies in this population. With the increasing prevalence of cancer survivors, improving function during and after cancer treatment is extremely important. Implications for Rehabilitation Chordoma patients who are admitted to inpatient rehabilitation facilities after surgical tumor resection experience improvement in multiple functional domains. Chordoma patients admitted to inpatient rehabilitation facilities experience a high rate of acute hospital transfer, but it is comparable to other cancer rehabilitation populations. Understanding the characteristics of the postoperative chordoma population is essential to direct future studies regarding cancer rehabilitation.