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Updated: Jun 23, 2025

A Mouse Model of Incompletely Resected Soft Tissue Sarcoma for Testing Neoadjuvant Therapies
Published on: July 28, 2020
Importance of Adequate Surgical Local Control in Fusion-Negative Para-Testicular Rhabdomyosarcoma: Data From the
Illya Martynov1,2, Monika Sparber-Sauer3,4, Amadeus Heinz3,5
1Department of Pediatric Surgery and Urology, University Hospital Giessen-Marburg, Philipps-University, Campus Marburg, Marburg, Germany. illya.martynov@uk-gm.de.
Background:
This study aimed to assess the impact that the quality of primary and subsequent surgeries has on the survival of patients with para-testicular rhabdomyosarcoma (PTRMS).
Methods:
Patients with localized (IRS I-III) and metastatic (IRS IV) PTRMS were enrolled in the two Cooperative Weichteilsarkom Studiengruppe (CWS) trials (CWS-96, CWS-2002P) and the Soft Tissue Sarcoma Registry (SoTiSaR).
Results:
Among 196 patients (median age, 8.4 years), 106 (54.1%) had primary complete resection. Image-defined lymph node (LN) disease was detected in 21 (11.5%) patients in the localized cohort and 12 (92.3%) patients in the metastatic cohort. The 5-year event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS) were respectively 87.3% and 94.0% for the patients with localized PTRMS and 46.2% and 42.2% for the patients with metastatic PTRMS. Protocol violations during the primary surgery (PV-PS) were observed in 70 (42%) of the IRS I-III patients. This resulted in higher rates of R1/R2 resections (n = 53 [76%] vs n = 20 [21%]; p < 0.001) with a need for pretreatment re-excision (PRE) (n = 50 [83%] vs n = 10 [17%]; p < 0.001) compared with the patients undergoing correct primary surgery. Protocol violations during PRE occurred for 13 (20%) patients. Although PV-PS did not influence the 5-year EFS or OS in the localized PTRMS cohort, the unadjusted log-rank test showed that R status after PRE is a prognostic factor for 5-year OS (R1 vs R0 [81.8% vs 97.6%]; p = 0.02).
Conclusions:
The quality of surgical local control in PTRMS is unsatisfactory. Emphasis should be placed on evaluating the resection status after PRE in further clinical trials.

