Bone Cancer Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Bone Cancer, including details on symptoms, types, treatment.

Surveillance in patients with sarcoma of the extremities.

Cool P, Grimer R, Rees R

The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, Northfield, Birmingham B31 2AP, UK. paul.cool@rjah.nhs.uk

AIM: To evaluate the efficiency of our follow-up regime for patients with sarcoma of the extremities. METHODS: We have reviewed our follow-up policy in 480 patients with non-metastatic bone or soft tissue sarcomas and with more than 5 years of follow-up. RESULTS: We detected 24% of the soft tissue sarcoma recurrences and 38% of the bone tumour recurrences. We detected 67% of the pulmonary metastases before they became symptomatic. Only 11% of those patients who developed metastases were cured, as were only 26% of those who developed local recurrence. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that our surveillance programme detects most metastases, but only about one third of the local recurrences.

Published 7 November 2005 in Eur J Surg Oncol, 31(9): 1020-4.
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