Reply to the Letter to the Editor: “Reinforced cementoplasty for pelvic tumour lesions and pelvic traumatic fractures: preliminary experience”

by Frédéric Clarençon, Amira Al Raaisi (fredclare5@gmail.com)

Reinforced cementoplasty for pelvic tumour lesions and pelvic traumatic fractures: preliminary experience

Dear Editor in Chief,

We thank Zhu H et al for their very relevant comments on our article entitled “Reinforced cementoplasty for pelvic tumour lesions and pelvic traumatic fractures: preliminary experience” [1].

First, it appears that Zhu H et al did not understand the difference between cementoplasty and reinforced cementoplasty (RC). The principle of RC is clearly explained in the Introduction section: “Reinforced cementoplasty is a minimally invasive technique that combines the use of dedicated pins inserted percutaneously into the bony lesion via a bone needle, followed by the injection of bone cement”. Additionally, we already published a previous case series, which is cited in the article, describing extensively this technique [2].

Second, it appeared to us meaningful to include the three patients who underwent a RC after failed regular cementoplasty, since RC may be an alternative to cementoplasty.

Third, we agree with the fact that patients having received additional treatments such as radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy may carry a bias. However, subgroup analysis appeared to us not suitable due to the small population sample. We also agree with the fact that the clinical outcome being self-adjudicated by the operator may bring a bias. This is unfortunately one of the drawbacks inherent to retrospective case series.

Finally, the 3-month clinical outcome for visual analogue scale and ECOG evaluation were not available.

We thank again Zhu et al for their very pertinent critical analysis of our article that helped us to enhance its quality.