[Experience with surgical treatment of osteosarcoma]

The authors treated 79 patients with osteosarcoma by surgery and chemotherapy 1975 through 1991. The appearance, localization and differential diagnosis are discussed. Attention is called to the doctor's delay. The effective pre- and postoperative chemotherapy decreased the incidence of the lung metastases and increased the survival rate (71% 3 years overall survival and 41% 5 years survival) and made the limb-sparing surgery possible. The development of the reconstructive surgical technique and new designs of tumor endoprostheses enabled us to perform limb-sparing surgery in more than one third of the cases at the same survival chance. The limb-sparing means a decisive change in the quality of the rehabilitation of the osteosarcoma patients.