ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate treatment and prognosis of patients with osteosarcoma of the extremities.Methods A total of 311 patients with osteosarcoma of the extremities,who had undergone treatment in our institute from 1998 to 2008,were enrolled in this retrospective study.Kaplan-Meier survival curve and Cox regression model were used to analyze the correlation between survival rate and variables including patients' demographics,chemotherapy,surgery,complications,and tumor metastasis.Results Among 311 patients,there were 206 males and 105 females,aged from 5 to 56 years (average,18.6 years).A total of 282 patients underwent aggressive or radical surgery,including 149 cases of limb salvage surgery and 133 cases of amputation surgery.One hundred and five patients underwent standard chemotherapy and 206 patients underwent non-standard chemotherapy.The 5-year survival rate was 57.4％ in patients treated with standard chemotherapy,36.3％ in patients treated with non-standard chemotherapy,16.8％ in patients with lung metastasis,50.7％ in patients without lung metastasis,56.6％ in patients who underwent limb salvage surgery,31.8％ in patients who underwent amputation surgery,44.6％ in patients with Enneking stage Ⅱ B and 33.1％ in patients with Enneking stage Ⅲ.For patients treated by amputation surgery,because non-standard chemotherapy which was performed in most of them and other confounding factors,the 5-year survival rate of them was lower.The Cox regression analysis showed that lung metastasis and non-standard chemotherapy were associated with inferior outcomes.Conclusion Neoadjuvant chemotherapy combined with aggressive or radical surgery could cure about 60％ of patients with osteosarcoma of the extremities.Lung metastasis and non-standard chemotherapy are risk factors that severely affect prognosis.