The own experience in femoral bone metastases treatment

Background. The objective of this paper is an efficacy analysis of surgical treatment of femoral bone cancer metasases depending on surgical technique and tumor localisation.
Material and methods. 144 patients who underwent surgery in 1996-2002 were assesed. In 32 patients with proximal femur matastases tumor resection and angled plate stabilisation was made, 68 patients underwent THR.
In 20 patients with tumor situated in femoral shaft an intramedullary nailing was performed and the rest 14 patients were treated with plate (AO/ASIF) technique. In 10 patients with distal femoral metastases an angled condylar plate was used.The average follow-up time was 6 months.
Results. The surgery outcome was assesed by functional Enneking test. The cases with proximal femur metastases were assesed by Merle d'Aubigne classification. In cases after resection and subsequent THR very good results were found in 5 patients,good in 34, fair in 23 and bad in 6 patients according to Enneking scale. In Merle d'Aubigne classification the results were as follows:very good in 6, good in 30, fair in 26 and bad in 6 patients.
In the intramedullary nailing group the limb function was found good in 17, in 1 fair and bad in 2 patients. The limb function in patients who were operated using plate condylar or stright(AO/ASIF) plate technique was found fair.
Conclusions. The high patients satisfaction and high ratio of good and very good results in tests after modular THR(proximal femur metastases)and after intramedullary nailing(femoral shaft pathology)are methods of choice in those cases. AO plate stabilisation combined with bone cement augmentation is suitable for pathological fractures management.