Diaphyseal osteosarcoma

Abstract

Fifteen cases of diaphyseal osteosarcomas were found in a review of 157 cases of long bone osteosarcoma (9.5%) and two further examples were added. The clinical and histological features of the diaphyseal osteosarcomas were indistinguishable from those of the commoner juxta metaphyseal osteosarcomas. The radiological features, however, fell into four distinct patterns: Group I had the classical appearance of a conventional osteosarcoma; Group II showed dense cortical sclerosis with bony expansion but no soft tissue swelling or break of the cortex at presentation; Group III presented with a pathological fracture through a purely osteolytic lesion; Group IV usually had the classical appearances of an osteosarcoma in the diaphysis but had, in addition, dense separate sclerotic lesions which were proximal to the tumour in the humerus and distal to it in the femur. The importance of these four groups lies in the quite distinct differential diagnosis which each presents.