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.

time dependency of prognostic factors in patients with stage II osteosarcomas.

Kim MS, Cho WH, Song WS, Lee SY, Jeon DG

Department of Pathology, Korea Cancer Center Hospital, 215-4 Gongneung-dong, Nowon-gu, Seoul 139-706, Korea.

Although several clinicopathologic parameters may be related to metastasis-free survival in osteosarcoma, the importance of prognostic factors with time is largely unknown. Therefore, we asked whether the clinical characteristics of patients with osteosarcoma with metastasis after 2 years differed from those of patients with an earlier metastatic event. We retrospectively reviewed 420 patients with Stage IIB osteosarcoma treated with surgery and chemotherapy. The minimum followup was 3 months (mean, 71.4 months; range, 3-257 months). Among the 420 patients, 167 patients had a metastatic event. A large proportion (43%) of the 35 good responders showed metastasis after 2 years, whereas 24% of the 96 poor responders showed late metastasis. Histologic response and chondroblastic subtype showed time-related changes. Poor histologic response showed a gradual decline in prognostic value and lost its importance after 2 years. Most metastatic events occurred within 2 years after diagnosis; therefore, we recommend new predictive strategies and followup protocol for patients experiencing late relapse.

Published 3 October 2007 in Clin Orthop Relat Res, 463: 157-65.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Bone Cancer Research Today. All Rights Reserved.