Abstract:

BACKGROUND: The giant cell tumor of bone has a high recurrence rate after traditional treatment; however, with better understanding of its mechanism and the successful application of tumor-type prosthesis, the therapeutic efficacy will be better.
OBJECTIVE: To summarize the application and pathogenesis of tumor-type prosthesis in the treatment of giant cell tumor of bone.
METHODS: A computer-based online search was performed on PubMed and CNKI databases with key words of “giant cell tumor of bone, tumor-type prosthesis, therapy research” from January 2000 to October 2010. Totally 475 documents were initially searched, and 35 papers were included in this review. 
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The traditional way to cure giant cell tumor of bone is surgery and the reconstruction work was operated based on the diverse situations of damages of bone caused by surgery. It can be seen that choosing tumor-type prosthesis to cure the giant cell tumor of bone is a better approach, according to the comparision of various bone reconstruction ways. It can not only enable the patients to acquire the instant stability of affected limbs or spines, also has less complication. Compared to other reconstruction ways, it apparently lowers rate of after-surgical recurrence, and makes the tumor be removed extensively. However, the application of tumor-type prosthesis does not implicate the disappearence of the recurrence of after-surgical tumor. Recently, the research of signal path from giant cell tumor of bone has made progress, providing a new therapy for lowering the rate of after-surgical recurrence and inoperable patients, which maybe increase the outcome of the therapy.