Limb Sparing Surgery for Extremity Sarcomas

Dr. Murray Brennan: It's sometimes hard to imagine that just 25 years ago, when I was first becoming involved in the management of sarcoma, the standard treatment, the uniformly applied treatment to everybody with an extremity sarcoma was amptuation. Here, just 25 years later, that is the rare event, not the common event. We now amputate less than 5% of all patients with sarcoma.

The decision for an amputation is a very difficult one. Conversely, in most situations it can be avoided and an operation performed that preserves function. And function, of course, is the key to rehabilitation.

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