Primary bone sarcomas of the craniofacial skeleton are rare malignancies. However, due to their location, treatment of this group of tumors can be extremely challenging and requires interdisciplinary cooperation. Structures of the craniofacial skeleton have close proximity to vital vascular and neuronal structures limiting the options in surgical radicality. Additionally, surgical resection of the functionally extremely complex craniofacial and maxillofacial tissues can lead to functional impairments regarding masticatory function, speech, and swallowing as well as impaired aesthetics. Surgical therapy of craniofacial bone sarcomas in most cases requires microsurgical tissue transfer. Functional adequate rehabilitation in the maxillofacial region requires the reconstruction of bone. Microvascular bone reconstructions require special planning, often using CAD/CAM. It is still a matter of debate if bone reconstruction should be done primarily or in a second approach and which technique should be used in craniofacial bone sarcoma reconstruction.
In addition, it is still unclear to which extend chemotherapy or radiotherapy protocols that were established for extracranial sarcomas can also be transferred to craniofacial bone sarcomas. There are clinical data indicating a different response to chemotherapy as well as a different prognosis that cannot be sufficiently explained with the anatomic location alone. Some sarcomas of craniofacial bones differ in their biological behavior from their counterparts in the peripheral skeleton which might be influenced by a distinct developmental-biological origin. The histologic diagnosis and classification of bone sarcomas is challenging and requires special histopathologic experience.
The proposed article series should deal with the questions described above and should motivate the scientific discussion to which extent craniofacial sarcomas can be considered as a special tumor entity. This could pave the road for further research that could finally lead to a better tumor biologic understanding and therapy.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.
Primary bone sarcomas of the craniofacial skeleton are rare malignancies. However, due to their location, treatment of this group of tumors can be extremely challenging and requires interdisciplinary cooperation. Structures of the craniofacial skeleton have close proximity to vital vascular and neuronal structures limiting the options in surgical radicality. Additionally, surgical resection of the functionally extremely complex craniofacial and maxillofacial tissues can lead to functional impairments regarding masticatory function, speech, and swallowing as well as impaired aesthetics. Surgical therapy of craniofacial bone sarcomas in most cases requires microsurgical tissue transfer. Functional adequate rehabilitation in the maxillofacial region requires the reconstruction of bone. Microvascular bone reconstructions require special planning, often using CAD/CAM. It is still a matter of debate if bone reconstruction should be done primarily or in a second approach and which technique should be used in craniofacial bone sarcoma reconstruction.
In addition, it is still unclear to which extend chemotherapy or radiotherapy protocols that were established for extracranial sarcomas can also be transferred to craniofacial bone sarcomas. There are clinical data indicating a different response to chemotherapy as well as a different prognosis that cannot be sufficiently explained with the anatomic location alone. Some sarcomas of craniofacial bones differ in their biological behavior from their counterparts in the peripheral skeleton which might be influenced by a distinct developmental-biological origin. The histologic diagnosis and classification of bone sarcomas is challenging and requires special histopathologic experience.
The proposed article series should deal with the questions described above and should motivate the scientific discussion to which extent craniofacial sarcomas can be considered as a special tumor entity. This could pave the road for further research that could finally lead to a better tumor biologic understanding and therapy.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.
