[Active surgical approach for retroperitoneal liposarcoma]

To assess the influence of active surgical approach on the long-term postoperative outcomes in patients with retroperitoneal liposarcoma.

A retrospective study included 190 patients with retroperitoneal liposarcoma. The effect of malignancy grade, adjuvant chemotherapy, number of separate tumor nodes in primary neoplasm and the first relapse, as well as the number of previous total resections on survival rate was analyzed.

Overall and relapse-free survival is significantly worse in patients with high-grade retroperitoneal liposarcoma (G2-3) compared to low-grade (G1) tumor (p_log-rank=0.000). Multifocal growth of primary tumor (p=0.869; p_log-rank=0.607) and multiple (>1) separately located nodes in abdominal cavity and retroperitoneal space at the first relapse (p_log-rank=0.158 to 0.985) did not significantly impair prognosis after total resection of all types of retroperitoneal liposarcoma regardless malignancy grade. Adjuvant chemotherapy does not significantly improve relapse-free survival. Overall survival was significantly higher in patients who underwent ≥4 previous total resections compared to 1 surgical treatment for all types of retroperitoneal liposarcoma regardless malignancy grade (p=0.000; p_log-rank=0.001).

The only potentially radical treatment for patients with retroperitoneal liposarcoma is surgery. We reported the advantages of active surgical approach for improvement of long-term outcomes in patients with retroperitoneal liposarcoma.