How I Treat Localized Soft Tissue Sarcomas: Update on Diagnosis, Risk Stratification, and Treatment

Adult-type soft tissue sarcomas (STSs) are rare tumors representing about 1% of all adult malignant tumors. Their extreme histological heterogeneity places them among the most challenging fields of diagnostic pathology. The variability of clinical and prognostic presentation between the various histotypes reflects the different management that should be followed on a case-by-case basis. These features make STSs the case in point of how important it is a centralized and multidisciplinary approach.

Surgery represents the mainstay in the treatment of localized STSs. Recently, more and more studies are making efforts to understand what the contribution of chemotherapy and radiotherapy with neoadjuvant and adjuvant intent may be both in unselected and selected histological subgroups. In fact, despite the improvement in overall survival seen in the past few years thanks to the adoption of a more radical surgical approach, mortality remains relatively high and the 5-year overall survival is around 65%.

In this review, we comment upon the treatment of localized STSs of the extremity, trunk wall, and retroperitoneum and how surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy can be integrated with each other and individually tailored. Nomograms can assist clinicians in this complex therapeutic decision-making process, through the identification of patients at higher risk of death or disease relapse.