What should I do if I have osteosarcoma

Osteosarcoma is a serious malignant tumor of the bone. If not treated in time, it can quickly endanger life. In addition, most of the patients are children and adolescents, so it often brings an unexpected blow to patients and their families. Here are some questions that patients and their families are concerned about, hoping to help them make the right treatment choices and build confidence to overcome the disease. So what should I do if I have osteosarcoma?

For low-grade malignant osteosarcoma, surgical treatment is the main treatment. If the resection is thorough, the prognosis is good. However, among osteosarcomas, low-grade malignancies only account for a small proportion, and most are highly malignant. For these osteosarcomas, a comprehensive treatment based on chemotherapy and surgery is required. Chemotherapy includes preoperative chemotherapy (neoadjuvant chemotherapy) and postoperative chemotherapy (adjuvant chemotherapy), which is very important in the treatment of osteosarcoma. It is precisely because of the popularization and standardized development of chemotherapy that the 5-year survival rate of osteosarcoma has increased from less than 20% to more than 60%. Surgery is also an extremely important part of the entire treatment. Whether the tumor can be completely and thoroughly removed is the key to the success of the treatment. Incomplete resection will inevitably lead to recurrence, and recurrence will greatly increase the risk of distant metastasis.

Chemotherapy for osteosarcoma uses a combination of multiple drugs and multiple cycles of medication to kill tumor cells, so sufficient doses and courses are very important to ensure efficacy. Currently, preoperative chemotherapy generally lasts 1-2 courses and takes 1-2 months.

The effects of preoperative chemotherapy include:

(1) Eliminate micrometastatic lesions (which may not be detected by routine examinations) and reduce the risk of distant metastasis after surgery;

(2) To reduce the size of the primary tumor, thereby reducing the difficulty of surgery or making it possible to save the limb if it is not possible to do so otherwise;

(3) After the surgical specimen is removed, the tumor necrosis rate is evaluated. The sensitivity of the preoperative chemotherapy drugs is determined based on the necrosis rate, and whether the postoperative chemotherapy drugs need to be changed is determined accordingly. Postoperative chemotherapy begins after the wound heals. It is generally believed that 6-8 courses of treatment are required, which takes more than half a year. Some people believe that extending the postoperative chemotherapy time to 1 to 1.5 years after surgery can further improve the 5-year tumor-free survival rate. Therefore, postoperative chemotherapy must ensure sufficient courses. Of course, it is not necessary to stay in the hospital all the time during chemotherapy. During the interval between medications, if there are no serious side effects of chemotherapy, the patient can go home to recuperate and return to the hospital for the next medication.

The above are the treatment methods for osteosarcoma. If you are suffering from osteosarcoma, you must receive timely treatment. Whether it is chemotherapy or surgery, it requires rich professional knowledge and experience, which cannot be accomplished by ordinary orthopedic surgeons or general oncologists.