Population-Based Registries are Important in Sarcoma: An Editorial Regarding “Incidence Patterns of Primary Bone Cancer in Taiwan (2003–2010)”

Excerpt

Ernest Codman is a well-known figure in musculoskeletal oncology. He is the source of common eponyms, such as ‘Codman’s triangle’, the radiographic appearance of a periosteal reaction stimulated by an adjacent osseous malignancy, and ‘Codman’s tumor’, more commonly referred to as a chondroblastoma. In addition, he was an early advocate of recording and analyzing ‘end results’ to truly assess the final outcomes of an intervention.1 In fact, with assistance from the family of a presumed sarcoma patient and the American College of Surgeons, he established the Registry of Bone Sarcoma in 1921 to make a record of any living patients cured of sarcoma, and to determine the means of attaining cure in those individuals.2 These simple goals manifested into the first concerted effort to document survival statistics, consolidate nomenclature, and determine the methods of cure in sarcoma. Although this initial effort was in a time before aggressive limb salvage, magnetic resonance imaging, modern chemotherapy, and the Internet, its basic goals and challenges continue to be relevant today. …