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Cartilage Tumours

Department of Radiodiagnosis, United Bristol Hospitals

This excerpt was created in the absence of an abstract.

In the Bristol Bone Tumour Registry cartilage tumours are the second most common tumours to be referred for consideration, taking second place only to those tumours arising in non-osseous connective tissue included in bone, which group includes reticulo-sarcoma and myeloma. In preparing this paper, the write had access to 250 cartilage tumours, but complete analysis of the whole series was not carried out, as some of the material was inadequate and some of the data incomplete.

The significance of cartilage tumours lies in their potential effect on the patient. Every cartilage tumour is a potential chondrosarcoma. Benign and malignant are relative terms, and cartilaginous neoplasms present a spectrum, a continuum with benign tumours at one end of the spectrum, frankly malignant tumours at the other end, while in between is a whole range of neoplasms which may be classified differently by different observers. As Willis wrote in 1953 "Innocence and Malignancy are relative terms of value in the art of prognosis, but not denoting distinct species of tumours. The question is not ‘Is it innocent or malignant?’ but ‘How innocent or malignant is the tumour? ’"

The tumours considered in this group are:

1. Osteochondroma —solitary

—multiple (diaphyseal aclasis)

2. Chondroma —solitary

—multiple (Ollier's disease)

3. Chondroblastoma

4. Chondro-sarcoma—primary

—secondary

1. Osteochondromas, although predominantly osseous, are produced by progressive enchondral ossification in a growing cartilaginous cap. Growth usually ceases at the time that the epiphyses fuse.