[Clinicopathological Study and Treatment Outcome of Retroperitoneal Soft Tissue Sarcoma]

We analyzed the pathological findings, surgical margin, the first site of local or distant recurrence, treatment for postoperative recurrence and the characteristics of 25 patients who were surgically treated for retroperitoneal sarcomas between December 2000 and January 2014. The median tumor diameter was 11 cm. The pathological diagnosis was liposarcoma (n = 14), leiomyosarcoma (n = 7) and others (n = 4). Tumors were resected en-bloc with adjacent organs in 17 of the patients. In median follow up period of 39 months, 11 of the 14 patients with liposarcoma experienced local tumor recurrence and distant metastasis did not precede local recurrence in any of these patients. Leiomyosarcoma recurred in all patients and distant metastases appeared before local recurrence in four of them. The five-year recurrence-free and over all survival rates were 28 and 58%, respectively. The recurrence-free and overall survival rates significantly differed between well-differentiated and other subtypes of liposarcoma (both p < 0.05). The overall survival was significantly better for patients with a tumor diameter of < 11 cm than for those with ≥ 11 cm (p 0.05). Furthermore, overall survival was significantly better for patients who were able to undergo re-operation at the time of recurrence than for those who could not (p < 0.005). Although we resected adjacent organs when the margin was insufficient, the rate of local recurrence was high in liposarcoma. On the other hand, the rate of distant metastasis was high in leiomyosarcoma.