Utility of surgical margins in the radiotherapeutic management of soft tissue sarcomas

✍ Scribed by Vilija N. Avizonis; Dr. William T. Sause; Ronald L. Menlove

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 499 KB
• Volume: 45
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-4790
• DOI: 10.1002/jso.2930450206

✦ Synopsis

Seventy-four adult patients with localized soft tissue sarcomas were treated with radiation therapy following surgery between 1965 and 1988. Fiftythree were treated after the first excision of their tumor with 6 (1 1.3%) local recurrences. Twenty-one received radiation after excision of recurrent disease with 11 (52.4%) local failures ( P <.0005). Metastatic disease occurred in 14 (26.4%) of the primary tumors and 8 (38.1%) with multiple previous excisions (P <.48). Of those patients treated for primary sarcoma, there were no local failures with pathologically wide margins or if a single margin was microscopically positive. Local failure occurred in 4 of 26 (15.4%) if the tumor was merely enucleated and in 2 of 11 (18.2%) who had grossly positive surgical margins (P not significant). Local failure was also more common in truncal locations (33.3%) as compared with extremity locations (8.7%, P=. 1359). Additional factors analyzed which adversely affected prognosis included tumor grade, stage, and inadequate radiation dose.