Metastatic bone patients who require surgery needs to be evaluated in order to maximise quality of life and avoiding functional impairment, minimising the risks connected to the surgical procedures. The best surgical procedure needs to be tailored on survival estimation. There are no current available tool or method to evaluate survival estimation with accuracy in patients with bone metastasis. We recently developed a clinical decision support tool, capable of estimating the likelihood of survival at 3 and 12 months following surgery for patients with operable skeletal metastases. After making it publicly available on We collected data from patients treated at 13 Italian orthopaedic oncology referral centers between 2008 and 2012, then applied to PATHFx, which generated a probability of survival at three and 12-months for each patient. We assessed accuracy using the area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC), clinical utility using Decision Curve Analysis DCA), and compared the Italian patient data to the training set (United States) and first external validation set (Scandinavia).Background
Methods
The reconstruction of lower limb defects after oncological reconstructions is still a problem in limb salvage surgery. Large bony defects need to be treated with sound and durable reconstructions. During recent decades, the life expectancy of patients affected with cancer has improved considerably because of advances in chemotherapy, immunotherapy, hormonal treatment and radiotherapy. This improvement requires greater reliability in the reconstructive procedure in order to avoid mechanical failure during prolonged survival of the patient. The author experience with modular megaprosthesis by Link (megasystem C) allowed us to present a rapid, effective and functional solution. From June 2001 to December 2007 225 patients have been operated with a megaprosthesis C for tumoral resection. The new megaprosthesis C by Link represents a wide-ranging system that can afford a large variety of reconstructions in the inferior limb, from very short replacement of 5 cm in proximal femur, to a total femur and proximal tibia replacement. Modularity is represented by 1 cm increase in length. The different options of cemented and not cemented stem may be used with intraoperative decision. In cemented stem a rough collar seals the osteotomy and prevents polyethylene debris from entering the femoral canal by inducing a scar tissue around the stem entrance (so-called purse-string effect). Moreover in patients with solitary lesions and very good prognosis an allograft-prosthesis composite can be performed with improved clinical results on walking and function. Of the 225 patients that underwent tumoral resection and reconstruction with a modular megaprosthesis approximately 43% (97 cases) were operated for metastatic disease. Among these cases 55 cases were proximal femoral recontructions, 39 cases were distal femoral reconstructions and 3 cases were proximal tibial reconstructions. All cases were performed with cemented stems. We experienced a 7% of postoperative infections, 2% of dislocations of proximal femoral prosthesis and 3% of mechanical failures. While infections and dislocation rates were in the average for this surgery, mechanical failures were relatively high. We should consider that in patients with relatively long resections and muscle deficiency the mechanical stress exerted on the prosthesis can explain this kind of mechanical failure. However the new design of morse tapers have annulled these problems
The authors present their experience in bone fusion with blood stem cells, growth factors, AlloMatrix Injectable Putty (Wright Medical Technology, Inc, Arlington, Tenn) and cancellous chips allograft combined in the treatment of compressive vertebral fractures (VCFs). Eight traumatic vertebral compression fractures at risk of kyphosis were treated by means of transpedicular bone fusion with blood stem cells, growth factors, AlloMatrix Injectable Putty (Wright Medical Technology, Inc, Arlington, Tenn) and cancellous chips allograft. In five patients (group A), mean age 34 years, mean follow-up 13 months, a minimal transpedicular screw fixation was added (two levels). In the other three patients (group B), mean age 26 years, mean follow-up 8 months, the percutaneous fusion was performed by means of vertebroplasty instrumentation. All patients underwent X-ray examination and CT at 45 days, 3 months and 6 months after surgery. In all cases fusion was reached earlier with excellent clinical outcome, especially in group B. Blood stem cells, growth factors, AlloMatrix Injectable Putty (Wright Medical Technology, Inc, Arlington, Tenn) and cancellous chips allograft combined in the treatment of compressive vertebral fractures seem to be an excellent method even though further studies and more detailed statistical validation are needed.
