[Accomplishments of tumor surgery in bone sarcoma in childhood]

Neither chemotherapy nor surgery alone provided satisfactory treatment of bone sarcomas in children. However, their combination improved the 3-year-survival rate by up to 80% in the last decade. For better life quality, limb-sparing techniques like en-bloc-resection, rotation plasty or endoprosthesis should be preferred instead of amputation, if they are possible within the demands of radical oncological surgery. The significantly higher incidence of pulmonary metastasis of en-bloc-resection compared to that of ablative surgery as shown in the COSS-80-study points out that limb-sparing surgery is still problematic and needs further technical improvement in the future.