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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · South Asian J Cancer 2016; 05(01): 15-19
DOI: 10.4103/2278-330X.179687
SARCOMA Review Article

Adjuvant chemotherapy in soft tissue sarcomas…Conflicts, consensus, and controversies

Jyoti Bajpai
Department of Medical Oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, Maharashtra
,
Deepa Susan
Department of Medical Oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, Maharashtra
› Author Affiliations Source of Support: Nill.
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Abstract

Soft tissue sarcomas (STSs) are an uncommon and diverse group of more than 50 mesenchymal malignancies. Each of these histologic subtypes represents a unique disease with distinct biologic behavior and varying sensitivity to chemotherapy. The judicious use of adjuvant/neoadjuvant chemotherapy along with surgery and radiation in the treatment of localized STS has a role in improving patient outcomes by decreasing local and distant recurrences. There is evidence that the use of adjuvant chemotherapy to a mixed cohort of chemo sensitive and insensitive sarcoma subtypes results in limited benefit. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to identify the subpopulation with high metastatic potential and to identify effective histology-specific treatment options to these patients. Present perspective, will focus on the rationale for adjuvant chemotherapy in sarcoma, with emphasis on the histology driven chemotherapy. It will outline key therapeutic opportunities and hurdles in adjuvant medical treatment of sarcoma, focusing on specific subtypes that are on the verge of new breakthroughs, as well as those in which promise has not lived up to expectations.

Key words

Adjuvant chemotherapy options - chemosensitive histologies - consensus - controversies - soft tissue sarcoma


Publication History

Article published online:
30 December 2020

© 2016. MedIntel Services Pvt Ltd. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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