U.K. and European trials of chemotherapy in osteosarcoma

Three current studies of treatment of osteosarcoma are reviewed and the results of a small completed study of adjuvant chemotherapy are given. The Medical Research Council has 152 patients in a continuing trial comparing two differing adjuvant chemotherapy schedules. The European Organisation of Research on the Treatment of Cancer, together with the International Society of Paediatric Oncology, are undertaking a three-arm trial of chemotherapy, lung irradiation, and chemotherapy plus lung irradiation, as adjuvant treatments in osteosarcoma, in which 85 patients have been entered as of September 1979. The Bristol Bone Tumour Registry treated 11 patients with a regimen consisting of intermediate-dose methotrexate and doxorubicin given for 1 year postoperatively, and have 64% of patients alive and disease free at a followup period of 42 to 62 months. A further study, based in Bristol, of chemotherapy and surgical excision of lung metastases has 8 of 14 patients free of disease, 3 to 25 months from thoracotomy.