Effect assessment of methotrexate in combination with other chemotherapeutic agents for osteosarcoma in children: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Osteosarcoma is a primary form of malignant bone tumor. It is commonly prevalent among children. Treating osteosarcoma with chemotherapy has had limited clinical outcomes due to side effects and the formation of drug resistance. Presently, a mixture of doxorubicin, cisplatin, ifosfamide, epirubicin methrotrexate, and other supplementary medications are used in osteosarcoma chemotherapy. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the clinical therapeutic effects of combining methotrexate with other chemotherapeutic agents to treat osteosarcoma in children. METHODS: The search of several electronic databases will lead to source related published studies. The electronic databases include both English (PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library) and Chinese (China National Knowledge Infrastructure, WanFang, and China Biomedical Database) databases. All studies published from inception to November 19, 2020 are searched. Study selection, extraction of data, and evaluation of the bias risk in included studies are carried out by two authors independently. The software, RevMan 5.3, is used to analyze the data. RESULTS: This study provides evidence of substantial quality for the clinical therapeutic effects of methotrexate combined with other chemotherapeutic agents for treating osteosarcoma in children. CONCLUSION: The results of this study provide conclusive evidence with regards to the clinical application of methotrexate combined with other chemotherapeutic agents for treating osteosarcoma in children. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Since this study will use published data, ethical approval is not required. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION NUMBER: This protocol has been registered on INPLASY202110024.