title: The effect of biopsy on survival of patients with osteosarcoma.
abstract: A retrospective study of patients with osteosarcoma was undertaken to determine whether there was a relationship between biopsy and survival. Fifty-seven patients treated at the Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, between 1938 and 1959 were included in this study, all of whom were less than thirty years old, had a metaphysial osteosarcoma in a long bone but had no pulmonary metastases at the time of diagnosis; all were treated by amputation. No clinical variants of osteosarcoma were included. Twenty-four of the fifty-seven patients had an amputation without a prior biopsy; the others had biopsies before amputation. These two groups were fairly closely matched in age, sex, site and size of tumour, and in the level of amputation; some patients in each group received radiation before operation. Evaluation of these two groups of patients revealed that the performance of a biopsy, with or without a delay of not more than thirty days between the biopsy and the definitive operation, had no adverse effect on survival.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000671:Amputation, Surgical; D001706:Biopsy / Q000009:adverse effects*; D001859:Bone Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000401:mortality / Q000532:radiotherapy; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009366:Neoplasm Seeding; D012516:Osteosarcoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000401:mortality / Q000532:radiotherapy; D012737:Sex Factors; D013997:Time Factors