Chondrosarcoma

Chondrosarcoma are a common malignant solid tumor of bone especially in Grade I forms. The grade II and II tumors are rare. They typically happen in the fourth and fifth decades of life. Treatment involves the use of surgery with or without cryotherapy. Radiation and chemotherapy is not usually necessary.

Figure 1. Five-year survival rates of chondrosarcoma are generally good at about 80%. This tumor exists in three grades with the poorer grades being responsible for the 30% fatalities seen above. Furthermore, the lower grade tumors can degrade "de-differentiate" into higher grades and it is important to remove them early and totally because of this.

Figure 2. Some of the worse challenges come with the higher grade of chondrosarcoma mainly because they do not respond to chemotherapy or radiation. Therefore the only recourse is to surgery. Occasionally, limb salvage is possible even in the very large tumors but the risk is very high. This patient had a neglected chondrosarcoma of the pelvis which was resected and reconstructed with a cadaveric bone transplant.