[Late outcome of 89 patients with soft-tissue sarcomas treated by surgery and three different radiotherapy schedules].
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the outcome of patients treated for soft tissue sarcoma using three different post-operative radiotherapy schedules.


METHODS
Between 1990 and 2003, 89 patients (median age 50.8 years) presenting with soft tissue sarcoma (located to the limbs for 66 of them) underwent post-conservative-surgery radiotherapy. Pathology was liposarcoma in 35 cases and 54 others tumors. Tumors grades (FNCLCC classification) were 1, 2, 3 or unknown in 29, 32, 19 and 9 cases, respectively. Surgery was considered as complete in 68 patients. Irradiation was normofractionated (NF) in 62 cases, hyperfractionated (BF) in 19 cases and hypofractionated (HF) in 8 cases. For all the patients, median delivered dose was 61 Gy [34-76 Gy].


RESULTS
Median follow-up of alive patients was 73,8 months [3-184]. Five-year local control (LC) and overall survival (OS) rates were 85.5 and 71.2% respectively. According to multifactorial analysis, favourable prognostic factors were for local control, complete surgery (P=0.0075) and for overall survival, complete surgery (P=0.0267), grade 1 tumor (P=0.012) and absence of distant recurrence (P=0.0488). There was no statistical evidence of difference for the five-year LC and OS rates between the patients who received NF, BF or HF. There were few complications and there were comparable in the three groups.


CONCLUSIONS
This retrospective serie showed similar results for all the schedules. There is no evidence to recommend bifractionation. Hypofractionation should be used only in selected patients with poor performans status.
Heymann
S
S
Service de radiothérapie, centre de lutte contre le cancer Paul-Strauss, 3, rue de la Porte-de-l'Hôpital, BP 42, 67065 Strasbourg cedex, France. sheymann@strasbourg.fnclcc.fr
Jung
G-M
GM
Simon
P
P
Bergerat
J-P
JP
Borel
C
C
Di Marco
A
A
Kurtz
J-E
JE
Marcellin
L
L
Ghnassia
J-P
JP
Dufour
P
P
Noël
G
G
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000453:epidemiology; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012509:Sarcoma / Q000401:mortality / Q000532:radiotherapy* / Q000601:surgery*; D016019:Survival Analysis; D016896:Treatment Outcome