[Translated article] Epidemiology of musculoskeletal tumours in a reference unit

The objective of this study was to perform an epidemiological analysis of patients presented to the Musculoskeletal Tumors Committee of a reference hospital.

A retrospective analysis of patients with sarcomas treated in a reference Sarcoma Unit between 2009 and 2022 was carried out.

A total of 1978 patients were analysed, of which 1477 (74.67%) were diagnosed as sarcomas. They were divided into 446 (30.20%) bone tumours and 1.031 (69.80%) soft tissue tumours. The most common benign bone tumour was enchondroma (27.23%), giant cell tumour (59.21%) was the most common tumour of intermediate malignancy and the malignant one was osteosarcoma (24.78%). The most frequently observed benign soft tissue tumour was lipoma (50.74%), the atypical lipomatous tumour (53.25%) was the most frequent tumour of intermediate malignancy and the malignant one was sarcoma of uncertain differentiation (38.10%).

Our study represents the first work on the epidemiology of sarcomas and other musculoskeletal tumours in our country, being very useful to adapt the resources destined for their diagnosis and treatment.