Molecular and cytogenetics of soft tissue sarcomas

Molecular and cytogenetically soft tissue sarcomas are a well-characterized tumor entity with several tumor type specific changes understood also at the molecular level. Most likely, additional characteristic alterations will be detected, recurrent aberrations characterized at the molecular level, new clinical and histopathological correlations will be found, and little is known about how the genetic changes lead to tumor formation, promote progression and sometimes give tumor cells the ability to recur locally or distantly. The possibility to detect cells with these acquired genetic alterations may increase the reproducibility of tumor classification, yields promising possibilities for early diagnosis of tumor recurrences and/or metastasis, and may allow development of therapeutic regimens targeted at the genetically alterated cell.