Alkaline phosphatase, lactic dehidrogenase, inflammatory variables and apparent diffusion coefficients from MRI for...

This present study aimed to assess if clinical, laboratory and MRI were an accurate benchmark in assessing the effectiveness of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in osteosarcoma patients.

This was an observational analytic study with a cross-sectional design. We correlated among clinical, laboratory and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data before and after neoadjuvant chemotherapy; and percentage of tumor necroses from osteosarcoma patients during the period between January 2017-July 2019.

Of the 58 patients included in this study, 38 were male and 20 were female aged 5 - 67 years (mean: 16-year-old. 37(63.8%) patients underwent neoadjuvant chemotherapy with CAI regimens and 13 (36.2%) with CA regiments. The tumors were classified as stage IIB in 43 (74.1%) patients and stage III in 15 (25.9%) patients. Wilcoxon test showed significant differences between alkaline phosphatase (ALP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) before and after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in the poor-response group. We found no significant difference between lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) and lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) before and after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in the good-response group. MRI revealed decreased tumor volume in patients in the good-response to chemotherapy.

We demonstrated that ALP level was statistically significant in the poor-response group. We also found that LDH value before neoadjuvant chemotherapy had a strong correlation with degree of necrosis and could be used as a predictive indicator. MRI plays an important role in evaluating tumor volumes and preoperative radiological changes to predict histological necrosis.