[Adjuvant chemotherapy in the treatment of sarcomas]

Abstract

For many types of cancers, adjuvant chemotherapy showed a moderate but significant benefit in terms of survival improvement. In sarcomas, the situation is contrasted and depends on the histological, molecular sub-types, as well as the topography of the tumor. Soft tissue sarcomas are in general poorly chemosensitive tumors and while adjuvant chemotherapy was found effective to delay relapses or to decrease the local relapses, it failed to yield a significant benefit with regard to overall survival. Sub-groups analysis indicate a significant lengthening of survival for the soft tissues sarcomas of the extremities. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy of the soft tissues sarcomas starts should be reserved to rhabdomyosarcomas and the bone sarcomas like the osteosarcomas and the Ewing's sarcomas of bones are more susceptible to chemotherapy, which is an integral part of the treatment with a preoperative chemotherapy and, following surgery of the primary tumor, an adjuvant chemotherapy adapted to the histological response to the neoadjuvant treatment.