Prognostic factors of recurrence after an intralesional excision of benign bone tumour in the peripheral skeleton

Background: Most aggressive benign bone tumours are treated surgically by an intralesional excision and bone defect filling. The primary aim of our study was to evaluate prognostic factors of recurrence after an intralesional excision of a benign bone tumour in the peripheral skeleton. We asked whether patient age and gender, maximal tumour diameter, histological diagnosis, and the tumour’s location statistically significantly impact postoperative tumour recurrences. The secondary aim was to evaluate preoperative differences between different histopathological groups of benign bone tumours and the impact of age and gender, maximal tumour diameter, histological diagnosis, and the tumour location on the number of diagnostic biopsies and curative surgical procedures. Methods: Retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data included a cohort of patients operated on at a single tertiary tumour centre between 2010 and 2020 with at least one-year follow-up. Ordinal logistic regression was used to assess the influence of input variables on the number of diagnostic/curative surgical procedures and postoperative recurrences. Results: The cohort analysis included 261 patients with 61 local recurrences. The risk of tumour recurrence was significantly lower with higher patient age (p = 0.001) and tumour location in the distal femur (p = 0.033). Higher number of diagnostical procedures correlated with higher patient age (p = 0.028), larger maximal tumour diameter (p = 0.035) and connective tissue tumour diagnosis (p = 0.027). Higher number of curative procedures correlated with larger maximal tumour diameter (p = 0.008) and lower patient age (p = 0.001). Conclusions: Preoperative features of benign bone tumours significant impact the number of surgical procedures needed to treat the tumour and the risk of postoperative recurrence. Although most of these factors are nonmodifiable, they represent an incentive to create evidence-based guidelines for biopsy indications, surgical techniques and consistent postoperative follow-up.