Clinical Study Lower Limb Core Scale: A New Application to Evaluate and Compare the Outcomes of Bone and Soft-Tissue Tumours Resection and Reconstruction Andrea Monticelli, 1 Davide Ciclamini, 1 Michele Boffano, 2 Elena Boux, 2 Paolo Titolo, 1 Bernardino Panero, 1 Bruno Battiston, 1 Raimondo Piana, 2 and Pierluigi Tos 1 1 U.O.C Muscoloskeletal Traumatology, U.O.D. Microsurgery, AO Citt` a Della Salute e Della Scienza, C.T.O. Hospital, via Zuretti 29, 10100 Torino, Italy 2 U.O.C Reconstructive and Oncologic Orthopaedics, AO Citt` a Della Salute e Della Scienza, C.T.O. Hospital, Torino, Italy Correspondence should be addressed to Davide Ciclamini; davide.ciclamini@gmail.com Received 27 February 2014; Revised 3 July 2014; Accepted 7 July 2014; Published 3 August 2014 Academic Editor: Khin hway Copyright © 2014 Andrea Monticelli et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Several methods are used to evaluate the functional outcome of tumour resections and reconstructions in the lower limb. However, one of their most common limitations is that they are speciically developed to evaluate only oncological patients. We introduced the Lower Limb Core Scale (LLCS) to overcome this limitation. he aim of this study was to evaluate the functional and subjective results in the lower limb and to evaluate the use of the LLCS. We conducted a retrospective cohort study using various tools to investigate the outcomes. he results of the LLCS were correlated with the results of other functional tests. A total of 44 patients were included in the study. None of the demographic variables correlated with the functional or health-related quality of life (QoL) scores except for gender, whereby male patients had an increased functional score. he correlation between LLCS and other scores was positive ( 2 = 0.77). he satisfactory QoL scores, and functional outcomes scores indicated the LLCS to be a reliable option for general and speciic evaluation of lower limb reconstructions. We suggest using the LLCS for comparisons of oncological reconstructions with lower limb reconstructions in diferent disciplines. 1. Introduction Bone and sot-tissue tumours of the limbs represent a group of difering and rare diseases that in the past normally required debilitating surgical operations. In the mid-1970s, the rate of amputation for extremity sot-tissue sarcomas was 40–50% [1]. Since then, the combination of surgery and radiotherapy has been proved to yield superior local control of tumours, compared with local excision alone, and has been fundamental to the adoption of limb-sparing surgery for high-risk sot-tissue sarcomas of the extremities [2, 3]. he current multimodal approaches, combining wide surgical resection with radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy, allow limb preservation in 90–95% of patients [4–6]. In fact, limb salvage is considered the cornerstone of treatment for musculoskeletal sarcoma of the extremities if a functional limb can be attained and no oncological contraindications are present [6]. Surgical margins are the most important factor associated with local tumour control [7], but obtaining good oncological margins can also result in extensive or critical loss of bone and sot-tissue components [8, 9]. Pedicled and free tissue transfers have been popularised for limb preservation and are useful techniques for bone and sot-tissue reconstruction [10, 11], since the principal objective, ater local and distant control of the disease, must remain the residual functionality (functional outcome) and the quality of life (QoL) of the patient. Several methods are used to evaluate the functional outcome in lower limb disease. However, they have several limitations, one of the most common being that they are speciically developed to evaluate only oncological patients. Considering the low prevalence of these diseases, such constraint limits the knowledge about long-term outcomes Hindawi Publishing Corporation BioMed Research International Volume 2014, Article ID 652141, 9 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/652141