The pediatric patient with sarcoma

The results of the treatment of the commonest soft tissue sarcoma in childhood have improved dramatically during the past decade. The combination of reasonable surgery, radiotherapy and multiagent chemotherapy has been demonstrated to provide effective control of both the primary tumor and distant metastases in patients with rhabdomyosarcoma. Similar progress with the less common soft tissue malignancies will be more difficult to attain. Current therapeutic trends appear to favor a similar multimodal approach with a conservative but complete surgical excision combined with varying regimens of radiation and chemotherapy. Because of the infrequent occurrence of these unusual tumors (450 cases per year in the United States) no single institution can possibly attract a significant number of new cases to enter on treatment protocols. Substantial improvement in our current therapeutic techniques will be possible in the future only if our combined multicenter studies are continuously refined, re-examined, and extended. A plea is made for early referral of these difficult patients to regional study centers.