Chondrosarcoma of bone. The experience at the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli

We retrospectively reviewed the records of 125 patients with chondrosarcoma seen at the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli. All of the patients had been followed for at least five years, and ninety-six patients had been followed for at least ten years. The requirements for the adequacy of treatment were carefully defined. Metastasis and survival were related to the histological grade of the tumor. Nine per cent of the grade-1 lesions and 44 per cent of the grade-3 lesions metastasized. Ninety-four per cent of the patients with grade-1 lesions survived for five years, compared with only 44 per cent of patients with grade-3 lesions. The ten-year survival rates were 87 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively. Adequacy of treatment had an important influence on the incidence of recurrence, length of survival, and length of disease-free survival. The incidence of recurrence in adequately treated patients was 6 per cent, but in inadequately treated patients it was 69 per cent. The five-year survival rates in these two groups were 81 per cent and 53 per cent, respectively. Seventy-eight per cent of the adequately treated patients were disease-free at follow-up (mean, 11.1 years) compared with only 6 per cent of the inadequately treated patients. We compared the results of this review with those of other reviews of chondrosarcoma.