Osteosarcoma after the age of fifty: A clinicopathological study

Osteosarcoma, a primary malignant bone tumor, has a well-recognised double peak of incidence in early adolescence and after 50 years. This study investigates the clinical features and prognostic factors of patients older than 50 years with osteosarcoma.

From January 2000 to December 2012, in one bone tumor reference center, 32 patients aged more than 50 years at the diagnosis (mean age: 62.4 years (50-85), sex ratio: 13 males, 19 females) diagnosed with osteosarcoma were included. Patients younger than 50 years at diagnosis or with a non-histologically proved osteosarcoma were excluded. For each patient, we registered medical history, tumor location, systemic and local extension, treatment, and survival.

62% were located in the extremities and 28% in the axial skeleton. 6 were secondary sarcomas. Mean delay between first symptoms and biopsy was 7.4 months (range from 0 to 28 months). Ten patients had a systemic osteosarcoma with one or more pulmonary metastases. Six patients were treated with palliative care (18.8%). Eighteen patients received neodajuvant chemotherapy, sixteen of them received postoperative chemotherapy. Twenty-five patients had surgery. Postoperative complications were reported in eight cases (25%). Overall survival for all 31 patients was 25% at 5 years and 6.2% at 10 years. Survival without metastases was 15.6% at 5 years and nil at 10 years. Median survival time for the 22 localised osteosarcoma patients was 4 years (0.9-12.6) versus 1.2 years (0.3-12.3) for the 10 systemic osteosarcoma patients (p = 0.01).

Metastases at diagnosis, age, axial location are worse prognostic for survival.