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Long-Term Outcome of Patients With American Joint Committee on Cancer Stage IIB Extremity Soft Tissue Sarcomas

From the Sarcoma Center at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX.

Address reprint requests to Peter W.T. Pisters, MD, Department of Surgical Oncology, Box 106, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Blvd, Houston, TX 77030-4195; email ppisters{at}mdanderson.org

PURPOSE: It has been suggested that patients with small (< 5 cm), high-grade extremity soft tissue sarcomas (STS) have an excellent overall prognosis and, consequently, may not require adjuvant therapies.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: A comprehensive review of all patients with extremity STS treated at a tertiary care cancer hospital over a 9-year period (January 1984 to December 1992) was performed. Prognostic factors, treatment data, and long-term outcome were evaluated in the subset of 111 patients with American Joint Committee on Cancer stage IIB (G3/4, T1a/b) disease.

RESULTS: The median tumor size was 3.0 cm (range, 0.6 to 4.9 cm), and 55 tumors (50%) were deep in location. All patients underwent surgical resection; 68 (61%) received pre- or postoperative radiotherapy, and 32 (29%) received doxorubicin-based chemotherapy. The median follow-up was 76 months. Forty patients (36%) experienced 59 recurrences. First recurrences occurred at local, regional, and distant sites in 21, five, and 14 patients, respectively. The 5-year actuarial local recurrence-free, distant recurrence-free, disease-free, and overall survival rates were 82%, 83%, 68%, and 83%, respectively. The presence of a microscopically positive surgical margin was an independent adverse prognostic factor for both local recurrence (relative risk [RR] = 3.75; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.25 to 11.25; P = .02) and disease-free survival (RR = 2.57; 95% CI, 1.33 to 4.98; P = .005).

CONCLUSION: Event-free outcome for this subset of patients with high-grade STS does not seem as favorable as previously reported by other investigators. Patients who undergo maximal surgical resection with microscopically positive margins represent a subset of T1 STS patients who warrant consideration for adjuvant therapies.

Presented in part at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Surgical Oncology, San Diego, CA, March 1998.

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