Treatment of massive iliac chondrosarcoma with personalized three-dimensional printed tantalum implant: a case report and literature review

Although customized three-dimensional tantalum implants have been used to treat a large variety of diseases, few reports have described the application of such implants to reconstruct large pelvic bone defects after the removal of massive tumors. We herein describe a 30-year-old woman with a 9-year history of a massive low-grade chondrosarcoma in the pelvic bone. After removal of a solid 12- × 8- × 6-cm tumor with clear margins, we used a customized three-dimensional printed tantalum implant to fill the large pelvic bone defect and performed hip arthroplasty in a one-step surgery. The patient’s postoperative recovery was uneventful. She started walking 1 month after surgery, and she developed no tumor recurrence, instrumentation failure, or implant loosening during the 12-month follow-up period. This report describes the successful application of a customized three-dimensional printed implant to reconstruct a massive pelvic bone defect. Satisfactory functional recovery was achieved with no apparent complications. The methodology of the current case may benefit orthopedic and oncologic surgeons in designing treatment strategies for similar cases.