Flores, then 19, was diagnosed with a chordoma wrapped around her brain stem. Chordomas are incredibly rare — only about 300 are diagnosed per year in the United States, A misplaced MRI found a ...

Karla Flores was just 19 when she was diagnosed with a chordoma, which is a developmental bone tumor, in her spine. At 18, Flores started experiencing double vision , ultimately leading to her ...

Imagine curing a life-threatening tumor by going through someone’s eye. That’s exactly what a team of surgeons did for a 19-year-old woman named Karla Flores — and it wasn’t for eye cancer.

Karla Flores was just 19 when she was diagnosed with a chordoma, which is a developmental bone tumor, in her spine. At 18, Flores started experiencing double vision, ultimately leading to her ...

In this case, the young woman had a slow-growing developmental bone tumor called a chordoma in her spine. Only about 300 chordomas are diagnosed in the United States every year.

Penn neurosurgeons and otolaryngologists performed the first robot-assisted spinal surgery. The robotic arms made it possible for the team to successfully remove a rare tumor in the patient's neck.

Surgery on a tailbone chordoma may be difficult because it’s so close to the spinal cord. When removing the chordoma, the surgeon must also remove some of the normal tissue surrounding it.

My chordoma, sensationally captured deep within my insides, was almost as rare. Thus began my life in film. Since 2014 I have had more than 100 MRI sessions, generating untold thousands of images.

Along with the spinal tumor, Flores also had a very large chordoma wrapped around her brain stem. In all, Flores had three separate surgeries, with two focused on taking out her brain stem tumor.

Mac Sinise died Jan. 5 after a five-year battle with chordoma, a rare type of cancer found in the spine. In his final years, he was dedicated to working with his father's foundation and making music.