Abstract
The Toronto Extremity Salvage Score (TESS) is widely used for the functional assessment of patients following surgery for musculoskeletal tumours. The aim of this study was to determine if there are gender and/or age-specific changes, unrelated to surgery, that may influence this score and the appropriateness of the questions. The TESS for lower limb was carried out in two different countries to see if there was variation between them. There were no statistically significant differences between the scores obtained between the respondents from Australia or Britain either in total or between the corresponding age groups. There were statistically significant differences in the TESS obtained between age groups with a lower score at older age groups but there was no difference between the sexes. Patients in the age group 70+ were more likely to record activities as “not applicable” and also have a lower score. This study has shown that age is the major factor in determining the TESS in both an Australian and British populations of otherwise healthy people. As there were no differences between the two populations, it supports the TESS as an international scoring system. There may be also an argument for age-specific questions.
Highlights
The function of patients after treatment is an important consideration in the management of tumors of the extremities
The scores were compared in total and separately by age groups and gender between those recorded by Australian respondents and British respondents
The main question of this study was to determine if age made a significant difference to the scores obtained
Summary
The function of patients after treatment is an important consideration in the management of tumors of the extremities. In this context, function has been conceptualized in various ways. Examiner-dependent clinical measures and patientreported outcomes are the most common. Others have used patient-reported outcomes such as the sickness impact profile [5] and the Toronto Extremity Salvage Score (TESS) [6, 7]. The questions arise: does age make a difference to the score; does gender make a difference to the score and does cultural background affect the score achieved?
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