Are Pathologic Fractures in Patients With Osteosarcoma Associated With Worse Survival Outcomes? A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Authors: Gonzalez Marcos R. , Bedi Angad , Karczewski Daniel , Lozano-Calderon Santiago A. 
Published: May 2023

Background

Pathologic fractures occur in 5% to 10% of patients with osteosarcoma, and prior studies have suggested they are prognostically important. However, because they represent an uncommon event in the setting of an already rare disease, most studies fail to reach conclusive findings, and there is no agreement about how best to treat pathologic fractures.

Questions/purposes

(1) Is the occurrence of a pathologic fracture in patients with osteosarcoma associated with poorer overall survivorship? (2) Is the occurrence of a pathologic fracture in patients with osteosarcoma associated with poorer local recurrence-free survival or metastasis-free survival? (3) Is the surgical approach (amputation or limb salvage) associated with differences in local recurrence rates in patients with osteosarcoma with pathologic fractures?

Methods

This systematic review was performed following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Our study was registered in PROSPERO (ID: 380459). A search of the PubMed and Embase databases resulted in 625 and 747 titles, respectively. After application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 21 articles were finally included. Quality assessment of all studies was performed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale. The Risk of Bias In Non-Randomized Studies of Interventions tool was used in the 11 articles that evaluated the effect of an intervention (amputation or limb salvage) on local recurrence rates. The relative risk (RR) was calculated to compare outcomes in patients with osteosarcoma with pathologic fractures and those without. Heterogeneity among studies was calculated using the I2 statistic. The pooled RR was calculated using the fixed-effects or random-effects model depending on study heterogeneity. The fragility index and the ratio between the fragility index and the total number of participants for each outcome was additionally calculated to assess the robustness of our results. A total of 7604 patients with osteosarcoma, 12% of whom (885) had pathologic fractures, were included in our analysis.

Results

Pathologic fractures in patients with osteosarcoma were associated with lower 3-year (RR 1.53 [95% CI 1.29 to 1.82]; p < 0.001) and 5-year overall survival (RR 1.27 [95% CI 1.16 to 1.40]; p < 0.001). No difference in recurrence rates was found between patients with osteosarcoma with pathologic fractures and those without (RR 1.22 [95% CI 0.91 to 1.64]; p = 0.18). However, having a pathologic fracture was associated with an increased risk of developing metastasis (RR 1.33 [95% CI 1.08 to 1.63]; p = 0.01). Treatment with limb salvage surgery was not associated with a higher rate of local recurrence (RR 1.58 [95% CI 0.88 to 2.85]; p = 0.13).

Conclusion

In light of these findings, surgeons should be aware that after appropriate case selection, patients with osteosarcoma and pathologic fractures undergoing limb salvage surgery may have similar rates of local recurrence to those undergoing amputation. Therefore, a pathologic fracture may no longer be an absolute contraindication for limb salvage surgery. Future studies adjusting for potential confounders such as tumor size, tumor location, and response to neoadjuvant therapy would provide further insight into the effect of pathologic fractures on our assessed outcomes.

Level of Evidence

Level III, therapeutic study.