Walking ability and activities of daily living after limb salvage operations for malignant bone and soft-tissue tumors of the lower limbs.

ABSTRACT

We evaluated the number of steps, activities of daily life (ADL) score, Enneking score, active range of motion and muscle strength by muscle manual testing for function in lower limbs after reconstructive procedures in surgical treatment of tumors. The 56 patients with 20 malignant bone tumors and 36 malignant soft-tissue tumors averaged 7119 +/- 3563 steps per day, or 69.8% of the control group. The average ADL score of patients was 14.0 +/- 4.1 points (70.0%), and the average Enneking score 20.4 +/- 6.0 points (68.0%). The scores of the bone tumor group were lower than those of the soft-tissue tumor group. These scores were not correlated with the range of motion. The number of steps and ADL score were correlated with Enneking score (coefficient 0.52 and 0.84, respectively). The number of steps and the ADL score appear to be useful, as is Enneking score.