Forequarter Amputation for Malignant Tumours: Tale of Sustained Relevance or Telltale Sign of Doom?

Forequarter amputation (interscapulothoracic amputation) includes surgical removal of an upper limb and the shoulder girdle, including the scapula and a portion of the clavicle. We aim to report about our recent experience of having to resort to this mutilating surgery and the clinicopathological variables in that context. The study was done at a cancer centre in Northeast India. It was an ambispective study design, where the patient cohort who underwent FQA was identified retrospectively from the operative register of major surgeries for the time period 1st June 2020 to 31st May 2022 (24 months), and these patients were followed up prospectively from 1st June 2022 to 31st May 2023 (1 year). The study variables were obtained from the electronic medical records (EMR), the physical case files and the hospital-based cancer registry (HBCR). There were 7 patients who underwent forequarter amputation (FQA) during the two years, and in the same period, 15 patients underwent limb salvage surgery for tumours around the shoulder girdle. This translates to a FQA rate of 31.8%. The male:female ratio of the patients was 3:4. The median age of the patients was 32 years (range 19 to 59 years). The histologies included osteosarcoma (2), chondrosarcoma (2), Ewing’s sarcoma (2) and hidradenocarcinoma (1). None of these patients had any distant metastatic disease. Four patients had local disease progression on neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Three of the patients had emergency surgery as a life-saving procedure on account of bleeding from their ulcerated tumours. Two patients had disease which was recurrent and unsalvageable due to the encasement of the neurovascular bundle. The median follow-up was 8 months (range 4 to 18 months). Five patients had distant recurrence with pulmonary metastases (100%) and bone secondaries (14.3%) within a range of 3 to 8 months. None of the patients had any local recurrence. Two patients are on follow-up without any evidence of disease (17 and 18 months respectively). Forequarter amputation is the surgical option when tumours around the shoulder girdle are not amenable to limb-sparing procedures by virtue of their disease extent. These cancers are usually aggressive leading to early distant metastasis.