Osteosarcoma of jaw: the experience of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital.

Seven cases with Osteosarcoma (OS) of the jaw were retrospectively reviewed. There were five female and two male patients. Their ages ranged from 14 to 57 years with a mean of 39 years. Seventy-one percent of the patients were older than 30 years old. Jaw swellings were the most frequent complaints occurring on an average of 3 months before diagnosis. Four cases occurred in mandible and three cases developed from maxilla. Most cases were lytic lesions on roentgenography. Four were osteoblastic, 2 were chondroblastic, and 1 was histologic classification. Six of the 7 cases received surgery. Postoperatively, 3 of them received both radiotherapy and chemotherapy, 1 received chemotherapy only and 1 received radiotherapy only. One case received palliative chemotherapy only because of the locally far advanced disease. Four cases died of regional failure without any metastatic lesions (survival ranged from 5 months to 22 months). Two cases survived more than 4 years without any recurrence. The median survival time was 22 months. We concluded that OS of the jaw has different natural courses from OS of the long bones and the regional failure seems to be the main problem in jaw OS.