Distal Tibial Reconstruction in the Management of Primary Bone Tumors in Children and Adolescents

Amputation and limb-sparing surgery in childhood sarcoma: Post-operative imaging appearances and complications

Limb-sparing surgery and amputation are common surgical techniques used to achieve local tumour control in childhood primary bone and soft tissue malignancy of the limbs. The interpretation of post-operative limb imaging in these frequently complex cases is assisted by knowledge of the surgical techniques employed. This review discusses the rationale underpinning the most common surgical techniques used for these patients as well as their expected post-operative imaging appearance and complications. Amputation, long bone resection, endoprosthetic reconstruction, allograft reconstruction, the use of fibular autografts, allograft-prosthetic composite reconstruction and arthrodesis are discussed.

Endoprosthetic Reconstruction in Ewing's Sarcoma Patients: A Systematic Review of Postoperative Complications and Functional Outcomes

Ewing's sarcoma (ES) is a rare primary bone cancer managed by radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgical resection. The existing literature on limb salvage surgery with endoprostheses combines data for ES patients with osteosarcoma. This review aimed to evaluate surgical and functional outcomes of endoprosthetic reconstruction in exclusively Ewing's patients. We believe that this is the first comprehensive review to evaluate the outcomes of limb salvage surgery with endoprostheses exclusively in Ewing's sarcoma patients. Clinical data and outcomes were collected from PubMed, Embase, Medline and Scopus. The inclusion criteria were studies on limb salvage surgery in ES patients, where individual patient data was available. Seventeen studies with a total of 57 Ewing's patients were included in this review. Fifty-three of the ES patients preserved the limb after limb salvage with endoprostheses. The average five-year implant survivorship was 85.9% based on four studies in this review. Postoperative complications were categorised by Henderson's failure modes. Soft tissue failure was the most common, occurring in 35.1% of patients, followed by deep infection in 15.7% of patients. There was a suggestion of 'good' functional outcomes with limb salvage surgery. The salient limitation of this review is the variability and rarity of the patient population. Homogenous data in a larger population is necessary to provide more insight into outcomes of limb reconstruction in ES.