Survival and prognostic factors at time of diagnosis in high-grade appendicular osteosarcoma: a 21 year single institution evaluation from east Denmark

Survival of patients with high-grade osteosarcoma (HOS), the most common primary bone cancer, has not improved significantly the last 30 years and the disease remains a major challenge. The purpose of this study is to evaluate survival in relation to prognostic factors at time of diagnosis among patients diagnosed with primary appendicular HOS in East Denmark between 1990 and 2010. 101 patients (median age = 20 years, female/male ratio = 56/45) diagnosed with primary appendicular high-grade osteosarcoma between 1990 and 2010 were included in this study. Initially, 156 patients diagnosed with osteosarcoma between 1990 and 2010 were identified through the population based Regional Database of Pathology, which covers a population of approximately 2.7 million (east Denmark). 55 patients were excluded due to (A) tumor was low grade (n = 22), (B) located in axial skeleton (n = 18), (C) incorrect diagnosis (n = 11) or (D) biopsy represented a tumor relapse from a former primary osteosarcoma (n = 4). Overall survival was evaluated using the Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and log-rank test. Prognostic factors were analyzed using uni- and multivariate cox-regression method with variables scored equally in the model. p Values