Chemotherapy is a drug treatment used to cure cancer. It is used to treat various types of cancers including breast cancer, colon cancer, liver cancer, lung cancer, and many others. Chemotherapy treatment can also be used to treat osteosarcoma.

Osteosarcoma is the bone cancer, which is found commonly in children that are characterized by the production of osteoid or immature bone by the malignant cells. In osteosarcoma, cancer begins in the bones and sometimes spreads to the lungs or other bones while in other types of cancer, the cancer cells spread to other parts of the skeleton eventually. Osteosarcoma is most common in teens with growth spurt as it is usually develops from osteoblasts (the cells that make growing bone). Osteosarcoma is developed largely in boys than girls and in most cases of osteosarcoma involves the knee.

Osteosarcoma is developed largely because of random and unpredictable errors in the DNA of growing bone cells at the time of intense bone growth. Currently no effective means is available, by which this type of cancer is prevented. However, if patients (mostly children) get proper diagnosis and treatment, they do recover.

Chemotherapy can be successfully used to treat osteosarcoma. Chemotherapy drugs when applied at the initial stage of the disease can eradicate these types of cancers. Before opting for any type of chemotherapy, it is essential to know all the effects of chemotherapy. The treatment of osteosarcoma using preoperative (neo-adjuvant) chemotherapy, surgery, and postoperative (adjuvant) chemotherapy is a well-established paradigm that reduces the incidence of lung metastases and results in superior survival. Different chemotherapy regimens can be used to treat osteosarcoma. These regimens include adjuvant chemotherapy and neo-adjuvant chemotherapy, which are mostly given to the patients.

Adjuvant chemotherapy or postoperative chemotherapy is beneficial for improving survival in patients with localized high-grade osteosarcoma compared to surgery alone. Today, adjuvant chemotherapy is considered as a standard component of osteosarcoma treatment, both in children as well as in adults.

With adjuvant or neo-adjuvant regimens of chemotherapy, the prognosis of patients with high-grade osteosarcoma of the extremity has improved significantly. However, the choice of chemotherapy treatment and correct timing of application (i.e. preoperative versus postoperative) are still controversial. However, in many cases preference is given to neo-adjuvant (preoperative chemotherapy) chemotherapy, especially when a limb sparing procedure is being contemplated for an extremity osteosarcoma.

Osteosarcoma Chemotherapy Regimen

Common chemotherapy treatment consists of a five week cycle. Different chemotherapy drugs used during cycle include cisplatin, doxorubicin, and methotrexate. To control the side effects associated with treatment, you need another drug called folinic acid. This drug is inserted through your drip for 2 to 3 days after your methotrexate treatment. You need to stay in the hospital when drugs are given.

Over the last there decades, the survival of the patients with malignant osteosarcoma has improved significantly because of the chemotherapy treatment. Before the use of the routine systemic chemotherapy, almost 80 percent of the patients developed metastases rather than achieving local tumor control and died of their disease. With the use of chemotherapy treatment for treating osteosarcoma, at least two third of the patients can survive for a long run of their life.