Metastatic osteosarcoma: a challenging multidisciplinary treatment

ABSTRACT

Osteosarcoma is the most common malignant bone tumor, currently treated with pre-and postoperative chemotherapy in association with the surgical removal of the tumor. About 15–20% of patients have evidence of metastases at diagnosis, mostly in the lungs. Patients with metastatic disease still have a very poor prognosis, with approximately 20–30% of long-term survivors, as compared with 65–70% of patients with localized disease. The optimum management of these patients has not been standardized yet due to several patterns of metastatic disease harboring different prognosis. Complete surgical resection of all sites of disease is mandatory and predictive of survival. Patients with multiple sites of disease not amenable to complete surgery removal should be considered for innovative therapeutic approaches because of poor prognosis.

KEYWORDS:

• Chemotherapy
• surgery
• different patterns of disease
• survival
• multidisciplinary
• genomic complexity
• tailored therapy
• targeted drugs

Financial and competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.