An approach to primary bone tumors.

This article is designed to provide the busy, practicing physician with the essential information needed to approach the patient with a primary bone tumor. An algorithm provides a suitable method of assessing most patients with bone tumors, recognizing slight modification is necessary in each case. Following this approach should allow successful accomplishment of the therapeutic triad: (1) do not "over-treat" a benign bone tumor, (2) do not "under-treat" a malignant bone tumor, and (3) do not misdirect the biopsy approach to the lesion so as to convert a more conservative operation into a more radical operation.