Examples of treatment modalities

Introduction

In the following section a short overview about the modern surgical treatment modalites at our department should be given by means of different clinical examples.

The operative surgical spectrum extends to a extraordinary wide field, ranging from consultation alone in case of benign lesions (which sometime neither require surgical therapy nor histological verification), local tumor resections with reconstruction of the resulting defects (incl. joint replacement) to multivisceral resections when parts of different organ systems are resected en-bloc, i.e., lung, diaphragm, chest wall and vertebral bodies of the spine.

To date, the overwhelming majority of operations at the extremities for treatment of bone- and soft tissue tumors are performed with the concept of limb sparing surgery and restoration of function. This significant progress is mostly due to the introduction of highly efficient pretreatment using neoadjuvant polychemotherapy, hyperthermia and radiotherapy. However, the application of modern surgical techniques including modular and combined tumor endoprostheses, sophisticated plastic soft tissue reconstructions with vascular resection and replacement as well as free flap transfer has also caused significant benefit to the care we now can give to the patients. Treatment by amputation -as it was the standard prior to the early 1970s- is nowadays only rarely performed.

In this conjunction we have structured the following section according to different anatomical regions, locations and tumor sites. In terms of a short overview the relevant surgical methods and treatment modalities for primary benign and malignant bone and soft tissue tumors as well as metastatic lesions should be demonstrated as they are performed in our department.

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