Spare the rod...

A matter of practical importance is whether it is necessary to cover the entire extent of surgical hardware placed in a long bone to repair a pathologic fracture. In this retrospective study from MSKCC of 145 long bone mets (138 patients) treated with palliative radiation, 36 (25%) recurred in the repaired bone. Just over half received radiation to all hardware while just under half were treated to part of the hardware. Whole-hardware coverage was associated with a significant reduction in the risk of recurrence from 21→ 12% at 1 year and from 41→ 16% at 2 years. | Rosen, Adv Radiat Oncol 2021