Treating soft tissue sarcoma

Soft tissue sarcomas can affect any part of the body. The most frequent location is the leg accounting for about half of all diagnoses. A significant proportion of cases are within the body - in the abdominal space or the retroperitoneum.

The first objective for every patient is an accurate diagnosis. It is becoming less common than it once was for a procedure, even surgery, to be undertaken before a full diagnosis is achieved but it can still happen.

Good surgery can be a cure. The surgeon will look to achieve clear margins of disease-free tissue around the lump when he cuts it out. These margins will be checked in the pathology laboratory. If gaining clear margins is difficult it is probable that a course of radiotherapy will be proposed.

Although no longer common, amputation may be the surest way to remove the cancer when in a leg or arm. Limb salvage techniques are improving all the time but large tumours in awkward locations can make that approach impracticable.

The aim is to ensure that the patient is free of any evidence of the disease when initial treatment finishes.

Sarcomas, however, do tend to recur so careful monitoring is important, certainly for the first two years following surgery. Monitoring will include a clinical examination, a chest x-ray (in some circumstances CT scans), and other simple tests, usually three monthly for a period, then six monthly, then annually.

There is plenty of evidence that treatment at a specialist treatment centre delivers the best results for patients. While initial surgery may be at the hands of a surgeon skilled in treating the location where the sarcoma initially grew the follow-up is best undertaken in conjunction with a sarcoma centre. These centres are usually at the large teaching hospitals, specialist orthopaedic hospitals, or at specialist cancer hospitals.

See Further Information for more about advanced disease.