Giant-Cell Tumour

Abstract

This osseous tumour remains a mystery in many respects. In particular, it poses the problem of its barely predictable course, with the possibility of malignant transformation. Giant-cell tumours have long been known and were clearly defined by Jaffe et al. in 1940, who established a classification in three grades. Very many cases have been published since, in particular the series of Coley et al. in 1958 (108 cases), Goldenberg in 1970 (222 cases), Dahlin et al. in 1970 (195 cases) and Meary et al. in 1975 (85 cases). Localisation of this tumour in the hand is quite rare. Averill et al. (1980) collected 20 large series, making a total of 1288 tumours, of which 31 were situated in the hand (2%). They presented a personal series of 28 cases, the largest recently published. Gupta et al. (1980) mentioned 6 metacarpal lesions in the series of 108 giant-cell tumours of Reddy et al. (1974).