The management of soft-tissue sarcomas of the extremities

Of fifty-four patients with a soft-tissue sarcoma of an extremity, having a projected five-year survival rate of 62 per cent, forty-six treated by an "adequate" surgical procedure (either radical local resection or ablation at an appropriate level, depending on defined circumstances) had a local recurrence rate of 2 per cent. In the other eight patients, whose surgical procedures were not adequate for one reason or another, the local recurrence rate was 100 per cent. The combined recurrence rate after both the adequate and the inadequate procedures was 16.7 per cent. The recurrences were noted prior to thirty months post-operatively and the metastases, prior to sixty months. Histogenesis of the sarcoma, one or more recurrences after previous operations, and treatment by an immediate definitive procedure at the time of biopsy and diagnosis by frozen section had no significant relationship to the rates of local recurrence or metastasis. Adequate radical local resection controlled these sarcomas as well as ablative surgery in terms of local recurrence and metastasis. The significant factors affecting local recurrence that were identified in this study were the location of the sarcoma and the adequacy of the surgical procedure.