Adjuvant chemotherapy in nonmetastatic osteosarcoma: a Southwest Oncology Group Study

This report updates experience with the CONPADRI-I, COMPADRI-II, and COMPADRI-III adjuvant chemotherapy programs for the treatment of nonmetastatic osteosarcoma. A total of 200 patients received one of the three regimens. The analysis of response to treatment is based on disease-free survival time (DFS time). The effect of treatment, age, sex, site of disease involvement, and race on DFS time were investigated. Cox's life-table regression analysis found only sex to have a significant effect on DFS time with males having 1.8 times the risk of recurrence or death per unit time as female patients (P = 0.004). An analysis of the 81 patients still alive and disease-free 18 months after the start of treatment shows significantly longer DFS time for CONPADRI-I than COMPADRI-II patients (P = 0.01). This trend is true for both male (P = 0.12) and female (P = 0.08) patients.