Adjuvant chemotherapy with six drugs (adriamycin, methotrexate, cisplatinum, bleomycin, cyclophosphamide and dactinomycin) for non-metastatic high grade osteosarcoma of the extremities. Results of 32 patients and comparison to 127 patients concomitantly treated with the same drugs in a neoadjuvant form.

Between March, 1983 and June, 1986, 32 patients with localized high grade osteosarcoma of the extremities who refused chemotherapy before surgery (neoadjuvant chemotherapy), were immediately operated on and treated with a protocol of adjuvant chemotherapy. This was performed with adriamycin, methotrexate, cisplatinum, bleomycin, cyclophosphamide and dactinomycin. At a median follow-up of 40 months (12-57), 20 patients (63%) remained continuously disease-free. These results appear to be better than the results achieved in our institution in 108 patients treated between 1980 and 1982 with an adjuvant chemotherapy protocol in which only adriamycin and methotrexate were employed. They also seem comparable to the results obtained in 127 contemporary patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy in which the same drugs were used (methotrexate i.v., cisplatinum i.a. preoperatively; adriamycin- methotrexate- cisplatinum or adriamycin -bleomycin -cyclophosphamide-dactinomycin postoperatively, depending on the degree of necrosis achieved by preoperative treatment). These data seem to indicate that the improved survival with neoadjuvant chemotherapy compared to a previous group of patients treated with adjuvant chemotherapy may be related to the improved effectiveness of the agents used rather than the sequence of treatment.