Adjuvant combination chemotherapy for osteosarcoma

The management of patients with osteosarcoma in Singapore has for many years been an unrewarding task for the attending physicians. Encouraged by reports of long-term survivals with adjuvant cytotoxic chemotherapy appearing in 1975, orthopaedic surgeons and radiation therapists at the Singapore General Hospital undertook a program of combination chemotherapy in moderate doses for osteosarcoma patients with localised disease treated by ablative surgery. A few who refused surgery had irradiation of the primary tumour.