Osteogenic Sarcoma: A 21st Century Review

Abstract

Compared to other bone tumors, bone osteogenic sarcoma (BOS) continues to confer a much grimmer prognosis as the survival benefit of traditional chemotherapy treatment regimens is still unsatisfactory. Chemotherapy was demonstrated to be effective in eradicating both primary tumor and pulmonary metastases in the last century, with effective agents used in various combination regimens having changed the survival rate from less than 10% to 75%. The most common primary bone cancer, BOS is conventionally a primary intramedullary high-grade malignant tumor characterized by malignant cells forming immature bone or osteoid. BOS is a disease with diverse morphological presentations. The treatment of all morphological variants seem to have been the same for over 30 years. The introduction of antiproliferative agents such as insulin growth factor-binding protein 3 hold promise of a potentially veritable therapeutic target. In this review, we highlight recent data on osteosarcoma to consolidate a platform able to connect bench and bedside.

Keywords: Bone; growth factors; insulin growth factor binding protein-3; osteosarcoma; pathology; review.