Development of minimally invasive surgery – High-speed grinding drill in the treatment of aggressive bone tumors

  Aggressive bone tumors include giant cell tumors of bone, aneurysmal bone cysts, chondroblastoma and osteoblastoma. The treatment methods include extensive resection, simple scraping, scraping combined with the application of bone cement to repair tumorigenic bone defects, and scraping adjuvant to liquid nitrogen cryotherapy. Reducing postoperative recurrence is one of the most important concerns in their clinical treatment. The application of high-speed grinding drill for the treatment of aggressive bone tumors has been reported in China. Since 2009, the Department of Bone Oncology has adopted high-speed grinding drilling treatment for 13 cases of aggressive bone tumors and achieved more satisfactory results.  (a) Open window scraping: Select the surgical access according to the tumor site. After fully exposing the surface bone cortex of the lesion, a bone drill is applied to drill holes along the open window site, and a bone knife is used to cut the bone cortex along the drilled holes to prevent combined splinter fractures. The tumor tissue in the cavity was carefully scraped away with a spatula of different sizes. After the tumor tissue is completely scraped away by the naked eye, the tumor cavity is flushed with a large amount of saline.  (b) Grinding drill: Under direct vision, a high-speed grinding drill is applied to carefully grind away the bone on the inner wall of the tumor cavity in all directions, especially the top of the tumor cavity, and if it is difficult to grind away, the curved drill bit with different angles can be replaced. The cavity is enlarged and additional bone tissue 1-5 mm below the cortical bone of the cavity is removed until normal bone is revealed. Usually, some of the subchondral bone is also removed, and some of the lesioned area needs to be brought to the plane of the articular cartilage. A large amount of saline is used for irrigation. During the operation, attention is paid to protect the surrounding normal soft tissues to avoid contaminating the surrounding normal tissues with residual tumor cells to the greatest extent possible.  (c) Filling defect: invasive bone tumor is mostly located at the bone end, which is a cavernous bone defect, and usually still has good bone strength after tumor scraping. Bone filling materials generally include: allogeneic bone, autologous bone, bone cement.  (iv) Postoperative treatment: For patients with aggressive bone tumor of lower limb, if the lesion is large, the scraping range is extensive, and the bone strength is significantly reduced, external fixation by plaster rest for 2 weeks after surgery. In 6-12 weeks after surgery, weight bearing is allowed within the maximum range of tolerance. For patients with aggressive bone tumor of upper limb, functional exercises can be performed 3 days after surgery when the swelling is reduced.