[Clinicopathological study of retroperitoneal sarcoma]

The purpose of this study was to retrospectively analyze the characteristics of patients with retroperitoneal sarcoma and to examine pathological findings, first site of recurrence and recurrence free-survival after surgery.

From June 2003 to May 2010, we performed 10 surgeries for retroperitoneal sarcomas. We chose 9 tumors after excluding 1 tumor that had already disseminated in the abdominal cavity. We examined patient characteristics, pathological findings and the first site of recurrence (local or distant metastasis). We also analyzed recurrence-free survival after surgery with the Kaplan-Meier method.

The patients' median age was 60 years (31-71 years), and the median tumor diameter was 10.0 cm (2.7-45 cm). Pathological diagnosis revealed 7 cases of dedifferentiated liposarcoma and 2 cases of leiomyosarcoma. En-block resection with adjacent organs was achieved in 8 of 9 patients. During follow-up, 5 of 9 patients experienced tumor local recurrence. There were no cases in which distant metastases appeared before local recurrence. The median duration between surgery and local recurrence was 13 months (3-27 months). The median duration from surgery to death was 30 months (5-78 months).

Although we resected adjacent organs together when we could not achieve a sufficient margin, the rate of local recurrence after surgery for retroperitoneal sarcoma was high. Given this result using treatment with surgery alone, it is necessary to prospectively establish multimodal treatments with chemotherapy and radiotherapy to reduce local tumor recurrence.