The value of high-dose methotrexate-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy in malignant fibrous histiocytoma of bone

The value of high-dose methotrexate (HD-MTX)-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy was evaluated in patients with malignant fibrous histiocytoma (MFH) of bone.

Since 1977, MFH of bone was diagnosed in 17 patients (12 males and five females). Ten patients (59%), completed treatment with four courses of neoadjuvant chemotherapy as follows: HD-MTX, vincristine, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, bleomycin, and dactinomycin, or HD-MTX, 4(1)-epidoxorubicin, and carboplatin followed by local tumor resection (n = 3), curettage-cryosurgery (n = 2), amputation (n = 2), or tumor resection-endoprosthetic replacement or allograft (n = 3). After recovery from surgery, an additional six courses of polychemotherapy, including HD-MTX in nine patients, were administered. One patient changed to cisplatin- instead of HD-MTX-containing chemotherapy postoperatively. One additional patient received only adjuvant HD-MTX-containing polychemotherapy. Neoadjuvant MTX-containing chemotherapy was contraindicated in five patients (29%) due to age, cardiac insufficiency, or mental disorder. In one patient, neoadjuvant chemotherapy was cancelled after one course due to renal failure. Treatment consisted of amputation (n = 2), one course of chemotherapy and amputation (n = 1), hyperthermic isolated limb perfusion (HILP; n = 1), intraarterial chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and endoprosthetic replacement (n = 1), and a combination of chemotherapy and radiation treatment (n = 1).

Five of six patients who received no HD-MTX-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy developed metastatic disease (83%); the median time to metastatic disease was 17 months (range, 3 to 44). In contrast, in 10 patients who completed treatment with HD-MTX-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy, with a mean follow-up time of 9.8 years (range, 2.3 to 15.7) and a median follow-up time of 10.8 years (range, 2.3 to 15.7) after diagnosis, no local recurrence or distant metastases were diagnosed (P < .005).

Neoadjuvant HD-MTX-containing chemotherapy in addition to surgery has dramatically improved the prognosis of patients with MFH of bone.