Editorial Comment: The Combined Selected Proceedings From the 2024 International Society of Limb Salvage Meeting and the 2024 Musculoskeletal Tumor Society Meeting

John H. Healey MD

H. Thomas Temple MD

The 22^nd general meeting of the International Society of Limb Salvage (ISOLS) was held in October 2024 in Brisbane, Australia. The post-pandemic resurgence in attendance from all over the world—and from Asia in particular—was gratifying. This meeting was different in that it centered around timely clinical issues and controversies. Invited plenary surgical and multidisciplinary authorities presented state-of-the-art talks and their personal approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of the full spectrum of bone and soft tissue tumors. This set the stage for wider discussions, in which expert panelists added their perspectives to supplement the presentations. In a “town hall” format, panelists addressed curated questions posed from the audience electronically. In addition, a number of more narrowly focused research reports were interspersed with these overview presentations and were provided electronically to the attendees. A number of these contributions stood out, and a few are included in this month’s selected ISOLS proceedings in Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research®.

The approach to tone and content taken by ISOLS at this year’s meeting was appealing as well as educational, and it showcased a variety of high-quality management approaches to complex oncological problems from around the world. In aggregate, the meeting demonstrated that ISOLS is successfully achieving its key goals. The studies presented in this month’s proceedings in CORR® highlight several advancements in surgical technique and also caution us about some long-term consequences of limb salvage with metal implants.

Paired in this special issue of CORR are some highlights from the meeting of the Musculoskeletal Tumor Society (MSTS) that was held in Chicago, IL, USA in September 2024—a meeting that boasted record attendance. The exciting program enabled thoughtful, engaged discussions on controversial topics and deepened our knowledge in other key areas of sarcoma care. The program balanced clinical research and basic science investigations, which yielded robust discussions. A particularly enlightening and engaging session on experiences and perceptions from actual patients with sarcoma who underwent limb salvage or amputation evoked unexpected and heartfelt reactions and emotions from the audience.

Taken together, the ISOLS and MSTS meetings illustrate each organization’s success in maintaining high attendance and widespread participation despite the universal challenges of navigating travel costs and competing meeting schedules. The compelling work presented from these meetings that are included in this month’s CORR include two papers from the United States [1, 3], three from other countries [2, 5, 6], and, importantly, two papers that were multi-institutional efforts [3, 4], which highlight the need for broad-based collaborative efforts to meet the needs of our patients with musculoskeletal tumors. Each of these papers addresses an important clinical question, and all of them provide valuable information for surgeons and help for patients faced with a cancer diagnosis.