Vascularised fibular grafts as a salvage procedure in failed intercalary reconstructions after bone tumour resection of the femur

Vascularised fibular grafts (VFGs) are widely used for primary reconstruction of long bones after bone tumour resections. The biological properties of VFGs are such that they can be a useful option even in failed intercalary reconstructions. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the results and the morbidity of VFGs as a salvage procedure in failed previous reconstructions after intercalary bone tumour resection of the femur. Our series included 12 patients, treated from April 1989 to March 2005, with an average age of 23 years (range 10–43 years) at presentation. The initial diagnosis was osteosarcoma in 10 cases and Ewing’s sarcoma in two cases. All patients received chemotherapy and none received radiation therapy. Seven patients received VFG as biologic augmentation in intercalary allograft non-union and in the other five patients, a combination of allograft and VFG was used to replace a cement spacer with hardware failure (four patients) and a failed intercalary prosthesis (one patient). Three patients died during follow- up, in all cases because of metastatic disease. At an average follow-up of 147 months (range 11–260 months), the remaining nine patients were continuously disease-free. Complete healing of the osteotomy of both allograft and VFG was observed in 10 patients at final follow-up. Two major complications were observed that required surgical revision, eventually healing in one case and leading to a poor functional outcome in one case. Significant hypertrophy of the VFG was detected in seven of nine evaluable patients. At final follow-up the mean Musculoskeletal Tumour Society (MSTS)’93 functional score of the nine evaluable patients was 90% (range 66–100%). These results indicate that VFG is a valid salvage procedure in failed intercalary reconstructions of the femur after bone resection.