A prospective study on predicting local recurrence of giant cell tumour of bone by evaluating preoperative imaging features of the tumour around the knee joint

[Update of the recommendations for the management and treatment of giant cell bone tumors, on behalf of GroupOS]

INTRODUCTION

Giant cell tumours (GCTs) are benign primary bone tumours that frequently present with local recurrence and occasionally malignant transformation to high-grade sarcoma. Surgery is the mainstay of treatment and generally consists of intralesional curettage. Denosumab was approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in 2014 for the treatment of skeletally mature adults and adolescents with unresectable GCTs or where resection is likely to result in severe morbidity.

METHODS

On the basis of national recommendations established in 2016 and a summary of the current state of knowledge, a GroupOS working group was set up to update and develop recommendations on the management and treatment of GCTs in adults, as well as on the place of denosumab.

RESULTS

Seven recommendations are proposed here: (1) diagnostic approach and imaging work-up; (2) principles of treatment for GCTs of the limbs; (3) indications for denosumab in GCTs of the limbs; (4) specific features of GCTs of axial location and multifocal GCTs; (5) therapeutic strategy following progression after treatment with denosumab; (6) progression under treatment with denosumab and suspicion of malignant form of GCT under denosumab; (7) monitoring procedures.

CONCLUSION

There are still unresolved issues, such as the optimal duration of treatment or the precise interval between maintenance doses of denosumab. Rarely, GCTs undergo malignant transformation. No clinical, histological or radiographic criteria can accurately predict subsequent aggressive behaviour.

The blood pressure and use of tourniquet are related to local recurrence after intralesional curettage of primary benign bone tumors: a retrospective and hypothesis-generating study

Aims

Intralesional curettage is a commonly used treatment for primary bone tumors. However, local recurrence of tumors after curettage remains a major challenge.

Questions

(1) Is blood pressure related to local recurrence after intralesional curettage for benign or intermediate bone tumors? (2) What’s the impact of tourniquet usage on the risk of recurrence from high blood pressure?

Methods

This retrospective study evaluated patients receiving intralesional curettage for primary bone tumors from January 2011 to January 2015. A total of 411 patients with a minimum five-year follow-up were included for analysis. Demographic and disease-related variables were first assessed in univariable analyses for local recurrence risk. When a yielded p-value was < 0.2, variables were included in multivariable analyses to identify independent risk factors for local recurrence. Patients were then stratified by tourniquet usage (use/non-use), and risk from high blood pressure was evaluated in both subgroups.

Results

At an average follow-up of 6.8 ± 1.0 years, 63 of 411 patients (15.3%) experienced local recurrence. In multivariable analyses, local recurrence was associated with age (OR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.94–0.99; p = 0.005); tumor type; lesion size (> 5 cm: OR, 3.58; 95% CI, 1.38–9.33; p = 0.009); anatomical site (proximal femur: OR, 2.49; 95% CI, 1.21–5.15; p = 0.014; proximal humerus: OR, 3.34; 95% CI, 1.61–6.92; p = 0.001); and preoperative mean arterial pressure (> 110 mmHg: OR, 2.61; 95% CI, 1.20–5.67; P = 0.015). In subgroup analyses, after adjusting for age, tumor type, lesion size, and anatomical site, tourniquet use modified the preoperative mean arterial pressure - recurrence relationship: when tourniquet was not used, preoperative mean arterial pressure predicted local recurrence (95–110 mmHg, 4.13, 1.42–12.03, p = 0.009; > 110 mmHg, 28.06, 5.27–149.30, p < 0.001); when tourniquet was used, preoperative mean arterial pressure was not related to local recurrence (all p values > 0.05).

Conclusions

A high preoperative blood pressure was related to local recurrence after intralesional curettage for primary bone tumors in our study. Tourniquet usage and controlling blood pressure might be beneficial for reducing local recurrence in patients scheduled to receive intralesional curettage for primary bone tumor treatment.

Level of evidence

Level IV, hypothesis-generating study.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12891-022-05157-4.

State of the Art and New Concepts in Giant Cell Tumor of Bone: Imaging Features and Tumor Characteristics

Giant cell tumor of bone (GCTB) is classified as an intermediate malignant tumor due to its locally aggressive behavior, burdened by high local recurrence rate. GCTB accounts for about 4-5% of all primary bone tumors and typically arises in the metaphysis and epiphyses of the long tubular bones. Mutation of gene H3F3A is at the basis of GCTB etiopathogenesis, and its immunohistochemical expression is a valuable method for practical diagnosis, even if new biomarkers have been identified for early diagnosis and for potential tumor recurrence prediction. In the era of computer-aided diagnosis, imaging plays a key role in the assessment of GCTB for surgical planning, patients' prognosis prediction and post treatment evaluation. Cystic changes, penetrating irregular margins and adjacent soft tissue invasion on preoperative Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) have been associated with a higher rate of local recurrence. Distance from the tumor edge to the articular surface and thickness of unaffected cortical bone around the tumor should be evaluated on Computed Tomography (CT) as related to local recurrence. Main features associated with local recurrence after curettage are bone resorption around the graft or cement, soft tissue mass formation and expansile destruction of bone. A denosumab positive response is represented by a peripherical well-defined osteosclerosis around the lesion and intralesional ossification. Radiomics has proved to offer a valuable contribution in aiding GCTB pre-operative diagnosis through clinical-radiomics models based on CT scans and multiparametric MR imaging, possibly guiding the choice of a patient-tailored treatment. Moreover, radiomics models based on texture analysis demonstrated to be a promising alternative solution for the assessment of GCTB response to denosumab both on conventional radiography and CT since the quantitative variation of some radiomics features after therapy has been correlated with tumor response, suggesting they might facilitate disease monitoring during post-denosumab surveillance.

Clinical Significance of Preoperative CT and MR Imaging Findings in the Prediction of Postoperative Recurrence of Spinal Giant Cell Tumor of Bone

Objectives

To explore the predictive value of preoperative imaging in patients with spinal giant cell tumor of bone (GCTB) for postoperative recurrence and risk stratification.

Methods

Clinical data for 62 cases of spinal GCTB diagnosed and treated at our hospital from 2008 to 2018 were identified. All patients were followed up for more than 2 years according to the clinical guidelines after surgery. Medical history data including baseline demographic and clinical characteristics, computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of recurrent and non‐recurrent patients were compared. Two musculoskeletal radiologists read the images and were blinded to the clinical data. The imaging features associated with postoperative recurrence were analyzed by multivariate logistic regression, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to determine the optimal cutoff value of the largest lesion diameter predicting recurrence after surgery.

Results

According to whether the disease recurred within the follow‐up period, patients were divided into the recurrence group and the non‐recurrence group. Of 62 patients (29 males and 33 females), 17 had recurrence and 45 did not. The recurrence rate was 27.4%. The mean follow‐up time was 73.66 (± 32.92) months. The three major treatments were total en bloc spondylectomy (n = 26), intralesional spondylectomy (n = 20), and curettage(n = 16). A total of 16 CT and MRI features were analyzed. A univariate analysis showed no significant difference in age, sex, treatment, multi‐vertebral body involvement, location, boundary, expansile mass, residual bone crest, paravertebral soft tissue mass, CT value, and MRI signal on T1‐weighted imaging (WI), T2‐WI, and T2‐WI fat suppression (FS) sequences (P > 0.05). The largest lesion diameter [(4.68 ± 1.79) vs (5.92 ± 2.17) cm, t = 2.287, P = 0.026] and the vertebral compression fracture (51% vs 82%, χ² = 5.005, P = 0.025) were significantly different between the non‐recurrence and recurrence groups. Logistic regression analysis showed that both largest lesion diameter (odds ratio [OR], 1.584; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.108–2.264; P = 0.012) and compression fracture (OR, 8.073; 95%CI, 1.481–11.003; P = 0.016) were independent predictors of postoperative recurrence. When we set the cutoff value for the largest lesion diameter at 4.2 cm, the sensitivity and specificity for distinguishing the recurrence and non‐recurrence of GCTB were 94.1% and 42.2%, respectively, and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.671. The combined model achieved a sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of 47.1%, 97.8% and 83.9%, respectively.

Conclusions

In spinal GCTB, maximum lesion diameter and the vertebral compression fracture are associated with tumor recurrence after surgery, which may provide helpful information for planning personalized treatment.

Giant Cell Tumors of Bone in Patients Aged 18 Years Old or Younger: Imaging Features and Tumor Characteristics

Objective

The majority of giant cell tumors of bone (GCTB) occur in adult patients, especially between the ages of 20 and 40. This study aims to investigate the imaging features of GCTBs in pediatric patients and compare their characteristics with adult cases.

Methods

Fifty-seven cases of patients aged 18 years old or younger were retrospectively analyzed, accounting for 12.8% of GCTBs in the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from 2001 to 2019. One hundred twenty-six adult patients (19 years of age and older) with GCTB occurring in long tubular bones were also included in this study. The following clinical information was identified from the medical records: age, sex, and follow-up data. Imaging features were reviewed by two musculoskeletal radiologists. Patient characteristics and imaging features between the two groups were compared.

Results

A total of 57 patients (32 females, 25 males) were included in the study. The patients’ ages ranged from 9 to 18 (median = 17 y). The majority of tumors occurred in tubular bones (n = 38, 66.7%) and the pelvis (n = 8, 14.0%). Imaging features were identified in GCTB cases occurring in the long tubular bones. Compared with adult GCTB patients, pediatric GCTB patients had a larger superior–inferior (SI) diameter (P = 0.005) and smaller left-to-right diameter/SI diameter ratio (P = 0.001). Epiphyseal involvement was relatively less common in pediatric patients with GCTBs than in adult patients (P = 0.009). The median age of patients without epiphyseal involvement was lower than the median age of patients with epiphyseal involvement (11 vs 17 y).

Conclusion

GCTB in the pediatric age group is rare. This study has found that, in pediatric patients with GCTBs, the epiphysis is relatively less involved, and the tumor is more likely to grow longitudinally. These findings are helpful in the diagnosis of GCTBs in the pediatric population.

Preoperative CT for prediction of local recurrence after curettage of giant cell tumor of bone

•Preoperative CT images of GCTBs have value in prognostic prediction.•Certain features of GCTBs on CT images are related to local recurrence.•Our models' predictions for GCTB patients accepting extensive curettage are good.

Denosumab for Effective Tumor Size Reduction in Patients With Giant Cell Tumors of the Bone: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

BACKGROUND

Denosumab is a human monoclonal antibody that has been used successfully in the treatment of giant cell tumors of bone. These tumors are rare and, in principle, benign, but they are highly aggressive, locally advanced, osteolytic bone tumors that can metastasize to the lungs. Denosumab is an effective treatment when these tumors cannot be surgically removed or when surgical resection is likely to lead to severe morbidity (eg, loss of limbs or joints). The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to investigate patients with giant cell tumors of bone who experienced tumor progression during treatment with denosumab and to compare them with patients who experienced reduction of their giant cell tumors of bone during treatment with denosumab.

METHODS

Embase, Cochrane Library, and MEDLINE/PubMed databases were searched for trials submitted by January 7, 2020, that reported the efficacy and safety of denosumab in patients with giant cell tumors of bone.

RESULTS

Sixty studies were reviewed, involving a total of 1074 patients who had giant cell tumors of bone and were treated with denosumab. Of the 60 studies, 58% of the patients were from case series studies, 39% from open-label phase II studies, and 3% from case reports. The response rate for denosumab as a treatment for giant cell tumors of bone was 97.5%, with statistical significance (P < .0001). Pain in the limbs was statistically the most common adverse event for denosumab treatment in case series studies (P < .0001). No treatment-related deaths occurred in the reviewed studies.

CONCLUSION

Cumulative evidence supports the addition of surgery to optimal medical therapy with denosumab to reduce tumor size, clinical symptoms, and mortality among patients with giant cell tumors of bone.

Prediction of the early recurrence in spinal giant cell tumor of bone using radiomics of preoperative CT: Long-term outcome of 62 consecutive patients

•

Characteristics of 62 patients with spinal GCTB who underwent surgery.

•

A prognostic classification model was built based on features selected by SVM.

•

The combined histogram and texture features could predict recurrence of GCTB.

Objectives

To determine if radiomics analysis based on preoperative computed tomography (CT) can predict early postoperative recurrence of giant cell tumor of bone (GCTB) in the spine.

Methods

In a retrospective review, 62 patients with pathologically confirmed spinal GCTB from March 2008 to February 2018, with a minimum follow-up of 24 months, were identified. The mean follow-up was 73.7 months (range, 28.7–152.1 months). The clinical information including age, gender, lesion location, multi-vertebral involvement, and surgical methods, were obtained. CT images acquired before the operation were retrieved for radiomics analysis. For each case, the tumor regions of interest (ROI) was manually outlined, and a total of 107 radiomics features were extracted. The features were selected via the sequential selection process by using the support vector machine (SVM), then used to construct classification models with Gaussian kernels. The differentiation between recurrence and non-recurrence groups was evaluated by ROC analysis, using 10-fold cross-validation.

Results

Of the 62 patients, 17 had recurrence with a recurrence rate of 27.4%. None of the clinical information was significantly different between the two groups. Patients receiving curettage had a higher recurrence rate (6/16 = 37.5%) compared to patients receiving TES (6/26 = 23.1%) or intralesional spondylectomy (5/20 = 25%). The final radiomics model was built using 10 selected features, which achieved an accuracy of 89% with AUC of 0.78.

Conclusions

The radiomics model developed based on pre-operative CT can achieve a high accuracy to predict the recurrence of spinal GCTB. Patients who have a high risk of early recurrence should be treated more aggressively to minimize recurrence.

Convolutional neural network to predict the local recurrence of giant cell tumor of bone after curettage based on pre-surgery magnetic resonance images

OBJECTIVE

To predict the local recurrence of giant cell bone tumors (GCTB) on MR features and the clinical characteristics after curettage using a deep convolutional neural network (CNN).

METHODS

MR images were collected from 56 patients with histopathologically confirmed GCTB after curettage who were followed up for 5.8 years (range, 2.0 to 9.5 years). The inception v3 CNN architecture was fine-tuned by two categories of the MR datasets (recurrent and non-recurrent GCTB) obtained through data augmentation and was validated using fourfold cross-validation to evaluate its generalization ability. Twenty-eight cases (50%) were chosen as the training dataset for the CNN and four radiologists, while the remaining 28 cases (50%) were used as the test dataset. A binary logistic regression model was established to predict recurrent GCTB by combining the CNN prediction and patient features (age and tumor location). Accuracy and sensitivity were used to evaluate the prediction performance.

RESULTS

When comparing the CNN, CNN regression, and radiologists, the accuracies of the CNN and CNN regression models were 75.5% (95% CI 55.1 to 89.3%) and 78.6% (59.0 to 91.7%), respectively, which were higher than the 64.3% (44.1 to 81.4%) accuracy of the radiologists. The sensitivities were 85.7% (42.1 to 99.6%) and 87.5% (47.3 to 99.7%), respectively, which were higher than the 58.3% (27.7 to 84.8%) sensitivity of the radiologists (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

The CNN has the potential to predict recurrent GCTB after curettage. A binary regression model combined with patient characteristics improves its prediction accuracy.

KEY POINTS

• Convolutional neural network (CNN) can be trained successfully on a limited number of pre-surgery MR images, by fine-tuning a pre-trained CNN architecture. • CNN has an accuracy of 75.5% to predict post-surgery recurrence of giant cell tumors of bone, which surpasses the 64.3% accuracy of human observation. • A binary logistic regression model combining CNN prediction rate, patient age, and tumor location improves the accuracy to predict post-surgery recurrence of giant cell bone tumors to 78.6%.

Increased Risk of Lung Metastases in Patients with Giant Cell Bone Tumors: A Systematic Review

Giant cell tumors of the bone are rare, usually benign, tumors consisting of large, multinucleated bone cells. Remarkably, these tumors are characterized by aggressive growth. They tend to recur frequently and, in rare cases, metastasize to the lungs. Previous studies tried to identify risk factors for lung metastasis by giant cell bone tumors. Those studies reported different results due to a small number of patients. Therefore, a particularly high risk associated with this type of bone tumor prompted this systematic review and meta-analysis to identify risk factors for the development of lung metastases. The risk factors for lung metastasis by giant cell bone tumors searched for in this study were gender, age, lung metastasis and recurrence period, follow-up time, primary or recurrent tumor, Campanacci grading, tumor localization, disease course, treatment of primary and recurrent tumors, and pulmonary metastases treated by surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. This meta-analysis identified the features outlined above by comparing the groups of patients with giant cell bone tumors and lung metastases with the control group consisting of patients without lung metastases. The search for suitable studies revealed 63 publications with a total of 4,295 patients with giant cell bone tumors. Of these, 247 (5.8%; 95% confidence interval (95%CI) 5.1-6.5%) patients had lung metastases. Further, the risk factors for lung metastases were the following: recurrence (p < 0.0001), lung metastasis time (p < 0.0001), Campanacci grade II (p = 0.028) and grade III (p = 0.006), localization in the lower limbs (p = 0.0007), curettage (p = 0.0005), and local irradiation of the primary tumor (p = 0.008). All studies showed a high-risk bias due to the absence of blinding of the participants, personnel, and outcome assessment. Special attention should be paid to tumor recurrence in the long follow-up time, since more advanced giant cell bone tumors, particularly in lower extremities, tend to reoccur and metastasize to the lung. Surgical treatment and local irradiation should be performed thoughtfully, with extended follow-up periods.

MRI assessment of the bone adjacent to giant cell tumours and its association with local recurrence after intralesional curettage

AIM

To assess the tumour border surrounding giant cell tumour of the bone (GCTB) using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and investigate its association with local recurrence.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Sixty-nine GCTBs in proximal tibiae and distal femurs were studied. The pathological basis of the paintbrush border sign was explored. Expression of Ki-67, matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), receptor activator of nuclear factor-κ B (RANK), and RANK ligand (RANKL) in GCTBs were investigated using immunohistochemistry. Patients treated with intralesional curettage were analysed retrospectively to investigate the prognostic role of the paintbrush border sign. The differences between rates were tested using the chi-square test or Fisher's exact test, as appropriate.

RESULTS

The paintbrush border sign correlated well with infiltrative margins. The expression of MMP-9 was associated with the paintbrush border sign, and positively correlated with RANKL and VEGF expression. GCTBs with the paintbrush border sign had a higher rate of local recurrence (76.19 versus 20.59%, p<0.05). The paintbrush border sign was more common in proximal tibiae, and positively correlated with cystic change. The paintbrush border signs were detected at T1-weighted imaging, but the sign was only evident in four cases on T2-weighted imaging.

CONCLUSION

Pathologically, the paintbrush border sign correlates well with invasion of the bone around GCTB. MMP-9 might play a key role in the formation of penetrating irregular margins. The paintbrush border sign is revealed as a risk factor for local recurrence of GCTB. Sagittal T1-weighted imaging is crucial to diagnose the paintbrush border sign.