Soft tissue sarcomas of the extremity. Is prognosis related to local environment?

Thirty-two patients with soft tissue sarcomas of the extremities were treated and retrospectively evaluated for the period from 1974 to 1978. Patients were treated by surgery with wide or radical margins or surgery with postoperative radiation therapy. Thirty-one patients were available with a minimum follow-up of 48 months. No significant difference could be detected between treatment modalities for continuous disease-free survival. The presence of tumor in muscular tissue gave a negative prognosis using multivariant discriminant analysis (P less than 0.05) with 39% of patients continuously disease-free at 48 months versus 77% of patients with tumors in nonmuscular tissue continuously disease-free. This observation suggests that the biologic milieu in which a soft tissue sarcoma grows may affect the course of the disease. These observations need to be confirmed by other investigators before using this criteria for treatment stratification.