MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty surviving patients with expandable endoprosthesis from 2006 till 2015 were scored using Musculoskeletal Tumour Society (MSTS) outcomes instrument and reviewed retrospectively for range of motion of respected joints, limb length discrepancy, number of surgeries performed, complications and oncological outcomes. Patients with less than 2 years of follow-up were excluded from this study.
RESULTS: Forty-five percentage patients reached skeletal maturity with initial growing endoprosthesis and 25% of patients were revised to adult modular prosthesis. One hundred fifty-seven surgeries were performed over the 9-year period. The average MSTS score was 90.83%. The mortality rate was 10% within 5 years due to advanced disease. Infection and implant failure rate was 15% each. The event-free survival was 50% and overall survival rate was 90%.
CONCLUSION: There is no single best option for reconstruction in skeletally immature. This study demonstrates a favourable functional and survival outcome of paediatric patients with expandable endoprosthesis. The excellent MSTS functional scores reflect that patients were satisfied and adjusted well to activities of daily living following surgery despite the complications.
Material and Methods: Thirty-three patients with severe open tibial shaft fractures were managed using a standardised protocol of emergent debridement, external fixation and immediate wound cover with free distant/local rotational muscle flaps and fasciocutaneous flaps, and with vascular repair in Grade 3C fractures. Intra-articular fractures were excluded. Patients were followed for a minimum of three years, with an assessment of clinical, radiological and functional outcomes.
Results: Wound cover was achieved with 24 distant free muscle flaps, four local rotational muscle flaps and five fasciocutaneous flaps. All fractures united with an average time to union of 40.3 weeks (16-88). Fifteen patients (45.4%) underwent only a single major surgery using primary definitive external fixation. Deep infection was seen in four patients (12.1%). Nineteen patients had excellent to good outcomes, six were fair, and eight were poor.
Conclusion: "Fix and Flap" in the same sitting, using immediate wound cover and external fixation, has given good results in our hands despite the delayed presentation, the neurovascular deficit and the degloving injury. This may be a better management strategy in overcrowded tertiary care centres of developing countries, with a single surgical procedure in almost half the cases.
METHOD: This is a retrospective survival analysis study of 128 patients treated at University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) from 1997 to 2011.
RESULTS: There were 80 (62.5%) male and 48 (37.5%) female patients with the median age being 15 (5-59). Majority had osteosarcoma of extremities (94.5%). More than 60% patients developed metastasis throughout the course of treatment with 39% presenting with lung metastasis. Osteoblastic osteosarcoma was the commonest subtype (65.6%). Of the 109 patients treated surgically, 84 patients (65.6%) underwent limb salvage surgery while the rest underwent amputation. Seventy-one per cent of patients completed treatment with local recurrence rate of 22.7%. The 5-year and 10-year survival rates were 56.31% (95% CI: 46.20, 65.24) and 22.33% (95% CI: 14.86, 30.76), respectively. The 5-year event-free survival was 52.94% (95% CI: 41.83, 62.87). In multivariate analysis, the independent prognostic factors were presence of metastasis and completion of treatment for both 5-year and 10-year overall survival. Good histological response was only significant for multivariate analysis at 5 years. Patients with metastasis had a hazard ratio of 20.4 at 5 years and 3.26 at 10 years.
CONCLUSION: Overall survival rate for osteosarcoma patients at our centre was comparably higher than other centres in the region. Two independent risk factors for survival are metastatic status and completion of treatment. A standardized chemotherapy regime is essential for long-term survival.
METHODS: One hundred osteosarcoma cases from 2003 to 2018 in Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia were retrieved. The tissue samples were stained for RANKL, and the association with the clinicopathological characteristics was evaluated. Staining was interpreted in a semiquantitative scoring system and classified into negative and positive expressions. Results: Eighty-two cases had a positive expression of RANKL in which 56 and 26 patients were classified as low expression and high expression, respectively. The positive expression of RANKL did not show a significant association with clinicopathological characteristics. However, Kaplan Meier survival analysis showed a significant improvement in the disease-free survival patients who underwent limb salvage surgery (LSS) than amputated patients (p-value 0.002), whereas poorer survival was observed among conventional osteosarcomas compared to non-conventional osteosarcoma (p-value 0.01).
CONCLUSION: Limb salvage surgery had proven to improve osteosarcoma patients' survival compared to amputation, which could improve overall quality of life in osteosarcoma patients. However, our data did not show a significant association between positive RANKL immunohistochemistry with any of the clinicopathological characteristics and patients' final survival. Further studies may be acquired to understand the suitability of using RANKL immunohistochemistry as prognostication in the management of osteosarcoma patients.