Clinical Significance of Additional Wide Resection for Unplanned Resection of High Grade Soft Tissue Sarcoma

PURPOSE: Unplanned resection of musculoskeletal sarcoma involves tumor excision without any suspicion of malignancy or regard for the necessity of defining adequate margins. For orthopaedic oncologists, many opportunities arise for management of unplanned resections initially performed by non-specialist surgeons. The puropose of this study is to assess the clinical outcomes and the problems of the patients with unplanned resection of high-grade soft tissue sarcoma. METHODS: 77 consecutive patients were retrospectively reviewed. Oncological outcomes together with validity and problems of additional treatments were analyzed. RESULTS: Five-year local recurrence-free survival, metastasis-free survival, event-free survival and total survival were 71.55%, 73.2%, 57.5% and 85.9%, respectively. Among adjuvant therapy including additional wide resection, radiotherapy and systemic chemotherapy, only additional wide resection significantly improved oncological outcomes. CONCLUSION: Additional wide resection appears to be effective in the treatment of high-grade soft tissue sarcomas following primary resection with compromised margins of resection.