Osteosarcoma. A multifactorial clinical and histopathological study with special regard to therapy and survival

A multifactorial analysis was performed on all 153 unequivocal cases of genuine osteosarcoma recorded in the Swedish Cancer Registry for the years 1958 through 1968. Cases of so-called parosteal osteosarcoma, soft-tissue osteosarcoma and osteosarcoma secondary to Paget's disease of bone were not included. The osteosarcomas were subclassified as follows: osteoblastic (69 per cent), chondroblastic (19 per cent) and fibroblastic (12 per cent). The overall 5-year survival rate was 22 per cent; 55 per cent for those who had undergone amputation above the joint proximal to the involved skeletal part, 22 per cent for those amputated on the involved skeletal part, 11 per cent for those treated with local extirpation of the tumor, and 1 per cent in cases in which the lesion was not radically removed. Tumors of the femur, humerus and scapula were as malignant as axial tumors. The former carried a 5-year survival rate of 13 per cent, regardless of whether the patients had been treated with exarticulation or amputation on the involved skeletal part. Patients with axial tumors showed a 5-year survival rate of 15 per cent. These survival data suggest that proximal amputation alone might suffice for lesions situated distally to the knee and elbow joints, while tumors in the humerus and femur should be treated with amputation combined with multicytostatic treatment or immunotherapy and axial tumors with local resection and multicytostatic or immunologic treatment.