Effect of combined therapy for osteosarcoma of limbs

Objective To evaluate the clinical effect of combined therapy for osteosarcoma of limbs.Methods Thirty-six patients with stageⅡB osteosarcoma admitted to our hospital in September 2005-December 2006 were followed up for 12-80（50.5±16）months.All patients underwent 3 courses of chemotherapy before operation.Of the 36 patients,4 underwent simple wide resection,30 received custom prosthesis,and 2 had large segment allograft reconstruction.Then they received 3-6 courses of post-operative chemotherapy.The patients were divided into group A（＜90% of the Huvos' tumor necrosis rate） and group B（≥90% of the Huvos' tumor necrosis rate）.Results The recurrent and metastasis rate had statistical significance between the two groups（P＜0.05）.The 3-year survival rate of the total patients was 77.8%,50% of group A,and 91.7% of group B,respectively（P＜0.05）.Conclusion Tumor necrosis rate is an important indicator for the evaluation of survival rate.Combined chemotherapy with multiple drugs at the standardized high dose is the key to a long survival time of patients with osteosarcoma of limbs.