الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Osteosarcoma is the most common primary malignant bone tumor. Despite the recent advances in diagnosis and treatment, it still constitutes a threat to the health of adolescents and young adults.(177, 178)
Response to chemotherapy is considered the most consistent predictor of patient’s outcome, yet survival rate hasn’t improved in the past three decades. With the emerging resistance to chemotherapeutic agents and subsequent drug toxicity, novel therapies are urgently needed to improve the survival rate, prevent local recurrence and development of lung metastasis. Several studies have been performed to tackle this issue using a wide range of markers including VEGF and MVD.(179-182)
In the present study, 15 retrospective osteosarcoma cases were studied. They were managed by excisional biopsy in the form of wide local excision or amputation. The cases were assessed according to VEGF and CD31 immunostaining and their expression was compared to pre-neoadjuvant specimens. Results were correlated with different clinicopathological parameters to suggest their role as a prognostic factor.
The mean age in the current study was 17.2 years which is in accordance with other studies that reported higher incidence of osteosarcoma in young age.(172, 183)Males in the current study constituted 73.3% of the cases and this result is in keeping with other studies which reported higher incidence in males. (115, 183)
In the current study, it was found that the femur was the most affected site that comprised 53.4% of cases. This finding is in agreement with Rossi et al,(183)Bajpai et al(184) and Lammli et al (185)who reported higher prevalence of osteosarcoma in the distal femur. This can be attributed to the rapid bone turnover during puberty.
Conventional osteosarcoma was the most common histologic type detected in the present study (86.7%).