Background: Bone sarcomas are the fourth most common cancer in individuals under 25 years. Limb salvage procedures are popular for the treatment of osteosarcomas as they have functional and physiological benefits over traditional amputative procedures.

Objectives: To apply disease specific measures to a group of intra-articular knee osteosarcoma patients and to evaluate structural and treatment variables predictive of the functional outcome scores.

Methods: Twenty patients (10., 10.) treated with tumour resection and endoprosthetic knee arthroplasty took part in the study. The Musculoskeletal Tumour Society (MSTS) rating scale and the Toronto Extremity Salvage Score (TESS) were used to assess impairment and disability along with a musculoskeletal eveluation.

Results: Impairment was recorded as 83.33% and disability was recorded as 86%. Task difficulty was shown to increase for activities requiring large knee flexion angles, presumably due to increased patellofemoral forces. Correlations were observed between the MSTS score and (a) knee flexion range of motion, (b) muscle removal, and also between the TESS and (a) time from surgery, (b) quadriceps strength and (c) knee flexion range of motion. ANOVA revealed no significant differences in impairment (P = 0.962) or disability (P = 0.411) between the differing types of prostheses.

Conclusions: Clinicians and therapists should emphases restoration of post surgical range of motion and strength in order to enhance functional recovery.