No abstract

The addition of ifosfamide and etoposide to a standard regimen does not affect the outcome for patients with metastatic disease, but it significantly improves the outcome for patients with nonmetastatic Ewing's sarcoma, primitive neuroectodermal tumor of bone, or primitive sarcoma of bone.

Osteosarcoma is the most common malignant bone tumor in children and adolescents. Survival for these patients was poor with the use of surgery and/or radiotherapy. The introduction of multi-agent chemotherapy dramatically improved the outcome for these patients and the majority of modern series report 3-year diseasefree survival of 60%-70%. This paper describes current strategies for treating patients with osteosarcoma as well as review of the clinical features, radiologic and diagnostic work-up, and pathology. The authors review the state of the art management for patients with osteosarcoma in North America and Europe including the use of limb-salvage procedures and reconstruction as well as discuss the etiologic and biologic factors associated with tumor development. Therapy-related sequelae and future directions in the biology and therapy for these patients are also discussed. The Oncologist