Epidemiological characteristics of patients with pelvic tumors submitted to surgical treatment.

Objective: Describe the epidemiological profile of patients with primary or secondary neoplastic lesions in the pelvis who required a surgical procedure such as hemipelvectomy.

Methods: This study retrospectively evaluated 69 patients located in the database of a São Paulo educational institution, subject to surgical hemipelvectomy treatment between January 1990 and December 2013. All patients had previous diagnosis of bone tumor (primary or metastatic) in the pelvis (ilium, ischium, pubis, and/or sacrum).

Results: Analyzing the data obtained in this study, it was observed that these are partly similar to those found in the literature, with primary bone malignancies as the main diagnosis; general injuries affecting the pelvic area I (pelvic bone) and its most frequent complication, infection. The differences are mainly due to rarity of the bone tumors evaluated in this study, and the type of surgical procedure in question, which is even more unusual.

Conclusion: Building a picture that conveys the reality of each diagnosis and that indicates which characteristics of these patients would better resemble an absolute or relative indication for the realization of hemipelvectomy is harder by the rarity of these cases.