Case Report: Characteristic findings of jugular foramen chordoma on long echo-time fat-suppressed T2-weighted imaging

Chordomas of the jugular foramen (JF) are rare and pose a diagnostic challenge, as their non-specific clinical and conventional imaging features often overlap with more common lesions such as schwannomas and paragangliomas. We present the case of a 41-year-old female with a JF chordoma. While routine MRI revealed a T2-hyperintense mass, the critical diagnostic clue was provided by long echo-time (long-TE) fat-suppressed T2-weighted imaging (T2WI, TE = 280ms), which uniquely depicted a distinctive "beehive-like" internal architecture. This report highlights the value of this sequence in effectively revealing the internal architecture of JF chordomas, serving as a crucial adjunct for accurate preoperative diagnosis, particularly for stroma-poor variants.