Type of Surgery
Information
Last updated: 11/24/2009
A patient who has had limb salvage surgery will remain disease-free as long as a patient whose affected extremity has been amputated.
Salvaged limbs always function better than artificial ones. However, it takes a year for patients to learn to...
walk again following lower-extremity limb salvage, and patients who have undergone upper-extremity salvage must master new ways of using the affected arm or hand.
Successful surgery reduces the frequency and severity of patient falls and fractures that often result from disease-related changes in bone. Although successful surgery results in limbs that look and function very much like normal, healthy limbs, it is not unusual for patients to feel that their appearance has changed.
Some patients may also need additional surgery within five years of the first operation.
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Other Information
Definition
Limb salvage surgery is a type of surgery primarily performed to remove bone and soft-tissue cancers occurring in limbs in order to avoid amputation.
Purpose
Limb salvage surgery is performed to remove cancer and avoid amputation, while preserving the patient's appearance and the greatest possible degree of function in the affected limb. The procedure is most commonly performed for bone tumors and bone sarcomas, but is also performed for soft tissue sarcomas affecting the extremities. This complex alternative to amputation is used to cure cancers that are slow to spread from the limb where they originate to other parts of the body, or that have not yet invaded soft tissue.
From http://www.answers.com/topic/limb-salvage-surgical-term
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