97° CONGRESS OF THE PIEDMONTESE-LIGURIAN-LOMBARD SOCIETY OF ORTHOPEDICS AND TRAUMATOLOGY (SPLLOT) - II (Alba, September 22-23, 2000) 

Minerva Ortopedica e Traumatologica 2000 October;51(5):283-6

Copyright © 2000 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: Italian

Pathological fractures in malignant bone tumours of foot and ankle

Lazzaro F., Daolio P., Perrucchini G., Parafioriti A., Mapelli S.

Bone tumours are rare, and statistics indicate an incidence of 10 primary malignant bone tumours/million population/year. Only 4-5% of these is localized at foot and ankle and metastases at this level are exceptional. In the present paper the authors report their experience about the surgical treatment of 64 foot and ankle bone tumours from 1990 to 2000; only 10 were malignant (namely: 3 cases of osteosarcoma; 3 cases of chondrosarcoma; 2 cases of Ewing's sarcoma; 1 case of malignant fibrous histiocytoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma respectively). A pathological fracture was never the first sign of the lesion, but small cortical fractures were detected by TC or MRI scans. In all cases the symptom onset was local pain. The respect of criteria of radicality requested from the clinical stage of the diseases is mandatory. Often a demolitive surgery is the only choice of treatment when the foot is involved; distal tibial and fibular lesions sometimes offer the possibility of performing a surgery with wide margins and good reconstructive solutions, as massive bone transplants.