Forty-three patients with osteosarcoma were treated with amputation and
adjuvant chemotherapy utilizing a four-drug combination of
cyclophosphamide, vincristine, phenylalanine mustard, and adriamycin
(CONPADRI-I regimen). Twenty-four patients (56 per cent) remained free of
metastases twelve to sixty-one months after diagnosis. Ten of the
twenty-four have been disease-free for more than three years. Another group
of thirty patients was treated with amputation and a five-drug adjuvant
chemotherapy program which included the administration of massive doses of
methotrexate with citrovorum factor (COMPADRI-II regimen). Twenty of the
thirty (67 per cent) remained free of metastases from twelve to twenty-six
months after amputation (median, sixteen months). Two deaths related to
methotrexate toxicity occurred. Late metastases developed in three patients
(at sixteen, nineteen, and twenty-six months after operation) in the group
treated with the COMPADRI-II regimen.