Reconstruction with fascia lata after extensive chest wall resection: results.

Objectives: Following extensive chest wall resection, the reconstruction technique should fulfill two opposing functional requirements: adequate rigidity and flexibility of the chest wall during the breathing phases. Reconstruction with fascia lata enables a balance between these two parameters, thus favouring the patients' respiratory dynamics and producing low morbidity and good functional results.

Methods: Sixty patients underwent chest wall reconstruction using fascia lata alone or in combination with titanium plates between 2006 and 2011, due to primary tumours in 28 patients, metastases in 23 and local recurrences in 9.

The role of imaging for the surgeon in primary malignant bone tumors of the chest wall.

Primary malignant chest wall tumors are rare. The most frequent primary malignant tumor of the chest wall is chondrosarcoma, less common are primary bone tumors belonging to the Ewing Family Bone Tumors (EFBT), or even rarer are osteosarcomas. They represent a challenging clinical entities for surgeons as the treatment of choice for these neoplasms is surgical resection, excluding EFBT which are normally treated by a multidisciplinary approach.

Survival in high-grade osteosarcoma: improvement over 21 years at a single institution.

Background: The purpose of this study was to analyze improvements in overall survival over 21 years (1982-2002), with a 5-year minimum follow-up, in the largest series from a single center ever reported.

Materials And Methods: All diagnoses of high-grade osteosarcoma were included despite histological varieties, age, site and stage. Of the 1656 cases observed, 198 patients were excluded (41 consultation only, 129 low-grade varieties, and 28 lost to follow-up).

Local and systemic control of Ewing's bone sarcoma family tumors of the ribs.

Background: A retrospective analysis of the results and relapse pattern was evaluated in 34 patients with Ewing's family bone tumors (EFBT) treated at Rizzoli Institute with neoadjuvant chemotherapy between 1983 and 2003.

Objectives: The aim of the study was to evaluate treatment strategy and compare our results with those obtained in other studies.

Methods: Local treatment in these patients was radiotherapy alone in 4 cases, surgery alone in 13 and surgery followed by radiotherapy in 17.

High grade osteosarcoma of the extremities metastatic to the lung: long-term results in 323 patients treated combining surgery and chemotherapy, 1985-2005.

Background: Approximately one-third of patients with localized osteosarcoma at presentation relapse as well as about three-fourths of the patients with metastases at diagnosis, about 90% of relapses are lung metastases. The role of lung metastasectomy remains to be determined.

Patients: and methods: Three hundred and twenty three patients, 88 with resectable lung metastases at diagnosis and 235 with localized disease at presentation who relapsed with lung metastases were treated.