The effectiveness of chemotherapy in localized malignant fibrous histiocytoma (MFH) of bone: the Rizzoli Institute experience with 66 patients treated with surgery alone or surgery + adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Between January, 1974 and July, 1985 66 patients with non-metastatic malignant fibrous histiocytoma (MFH) of bone in the estremities were surgically treated with amputation (34 cases) or resection (32 cases) according to the extension of the tumor. With the exception of 3 patients, who had severe medical contraindications to the chemotherapeutic drugs, all the patients were offered, in addition to the surgery, adjuvant chemotherapy (patients treated before 1983) or neoadjuvant chemotherapy (patients treated after 1983). 33 patients accepted, while 30 wanted to be treated with surgery alone. At median follow-up of 7 years (3-14) 25 patients remained continuously disease-free and 41 relapsed (27 with metastatic disease, 1 with local recurrence and 13 with both metastases and local recurrence). The percentage of patients who remained continuously disease-free was 12.1% (4:33) in the group of patients treated with surgery alone and 63.5% (21:33) in the group treated with surgery plus adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Although the two groups of patients were not completely superimposable (the patients treated with surgery alone were older and more often the MFH arose in pre-existing bone lesions) these results seem to suggest the usefulness of adjuvant and neoadjuvant chemotherapy for this tumor.