Limb salvage for malignant bone and soft-tissue tumours of the shoulder girdle

We treated 15 patients with malignant bone and soft-tissue tumours of the shoulder girdle using limb salvage operations involving resection of the proximal humerus, scapula and clavicle. The oncological and functional outcomes were evaluated in all patients after an average of 5 (1-13) years. Oncological evaluation revealed that in 11 patients with adequate surgical margins six were continuously disease free and two had no evidence of disease. Three patients with marginal surgical margins had all died. We suggest that only where adequate surgical margins can be obtained should operations be performed. Forequarter amputation is still indicated in patients with complicated neurovascular involvement. Functional evaluation showed that scapular resections, especially glenoid resections, provided poor results (mean score 54%) in comparison with patients without such resection (mean score 82%).