Soft tissue sarcoma: a prognostic variables and treatment outcomes after chemo-radiotherapy and conservative surgery

Abstract EN

Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) constitute a group of rare and heterogeneous cancers, that diverse a wide spectrum of histology and varied clinical behavior.

The aim was to study, retrospectively the clinico-epidemiologic manifestation, response to therapy and prognostic factors of retroperitoneal (RPS), extremity and other STS patients treated with conservative surgery plus chemoradiotherapy (CRT) attending the Pediatric Oncology Clinic, National Cancer Institute (NCI), Cairo University during 6 years period (inclusive).

Files of 66 STS patients were revised for history, staging, investigations, treatment modalities and outcome of therapy.

Their ages ranged from 6 months to 21 years.

The male to female ratio was 1.87:1.

Most of the patients belong to stage 3 and 1.

Radiotherapy (RTH) and surgery remains the backbone of the multimodality treatment plan.

Complete remission (CR) was obtained in 80.3% of STS patients.

Meanwhile, 6% of cases had disease progression and 6% died.

The 2-years overall survival rate (OS) and Disease-free survivals (DFS) were 74.2% and 57.6% respectively.

However, 20.8% of patients develop relapse >2 years after the end of treatment.

Age at diagnosis, stage of the disease, tumor mass, pathological subtype and the RTH used were statistically significant prognostic variables affecting survival.

Finally, the use of RTH in the treatment of STS gives positive impact on the survival of patients.

Recommendation regarding further studies would be required to identify methods of increasing the radiation dose selectively.

Also, using the newly developed radiation technologies to make dose escalation and sparing normal tissue.