Comprehensive treatment based on intra-arterial chemotherapy for distal femur neoplasms

To investigate the clinical efficacy of intra-arterial chemotherapy by subcutaneous implantable delivery system (SIDS) in the treatment of distal femur neoplasm. From March 2002 to December 2009, 51 patients were treated with SIDS intra-femoral artery chemotherapy, followed by customized prosthetic reconstruction, including 45 patients of osteosarcoma and 6 malignant fibrous histiocytoma in distal femur. The average follow-up period was 64 months (ranging between 24 and 116 months) to track on the efficacy of chemotherapy, which shows that 96.1 % of patients got pain relief, 70.6 % of patients had significant radiological change, and 82.4 % of paitents with medium to severe pathological variation responded to the chemotherapy. Local recurrence happened in 4 cases, 3 cases are alive with disease, 4 cases died because of pulmonary metastases and other 40 patients are free of local recurrence or distant metastasis. SIDS intra-femur artery chemotherapy can improve clinical outcome of DFN, and provide effective method for treatment of DFN when combined with customized prosthetic reconstruction.