Giant Cell Tumor of the Bone : Radiographic Evaluation

Abstract

Giant cell tumor is a relatively common skeletal tumor with radiographically characteristic appearance in a predictable location. Clinical data from 66 patients with radiographical and from 37 patients with pathological diagnosis of giant cell tumor of the bone in Siriraj Hospital were retrospectively reviewed from June 1995 - December 2001. Histological grading was classified as grade I 78%, grade II 19%, and grade III 3%. Female patients accounted for a alight majority (F : M = 1.54 : 1). Eighty percent of the tumors were in the expected locations at the end of long bone (femur, tibia, radius, and humerus), where as a few lesions were located at atypical sites such as sacrum, talus, ulna, rib, or scapula. One patient had pulmonary metastasis and one patient had multifocal lesions. The aggressiveness of radiographic findings was evaluated and based on the following criterias : breaking of cortex, soft tissue involvement, joint involvement and large tumor size in correlation with histological grading and tumor recurrence. Our study showed no correlation between tumor size and histological grading.