On May 6, 2025, in a first-of-its-kind surgery, a multidisciplinary team led by a University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) neurosurgeon successfully removed a rare cancerous tumor wrapped around the spine and spinal cord of a 19-year-old woman – through her eye socket (orbit).

Although surgeons use a “transorbital” approach to access tumors in the brain and sinuses, this is the first time it has ever been used to remove a spinal tumor.

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.

“The tumor was wrapped around the patient’s spine and spinal cord and had invaded the vertebrae in her neck, just below the base of the skull,” said Mohamed A.M. Labib, MD, CM, a UMMC neurosurgeon and Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM). “By going through the bottom of the eye socket, we were able to remove a tumor that otherwise would have been very difficult and very risky to address.”

Dr. Labib said that trying to reach the tumor from the back could have risked damaging the spinal cord. “We also avoided disturbing or damaging key structures such as the eustachian tube, major blood vessels such as the jugular vein and internal carotid artery, and nerves that control swallowing and speech,” he said.