The picture of Oscar X

摘要

Here I am, an old man, writing the weirdest and probably the last death certificate of my medical career. I have been practising internal medicine for more than 50 years and I am now a well-respected physician, close to retirement and daring to narrate the story of my last patient. I was in the middle of my career when I first met Oscar X. He was a 55-year-old man of medium height and weight, bald with a small beard. He had complained of pain in his right hip for the previous six months. Initially the pain was mild, but it became stronger, and swelling appeared in the area. X-rays revealed a radiolu-cent mass with calcifications at the right ilium. MRI did not show extension to the adjacent soft tissues. A biopsy revealed the presence of chondrosa-rcoma grade 1 with areas of dedifferentiated chondro-sarcoma.