Long-term survival by repeat resection for metastases from primary retroperitoneal leiomyosarcoma: A case report

BACKGOUND: Retroperitoneal (RP) leiomyosarcoma (LMS) is a rare type of cancer, accounting for 0.1% of all malignancies. The gold-standard treatment for sarcoma is complete resection, and a 50% 5-year overall survival (OS) rate can be achieved by curative surgery. The survival benefits of radiotherapy and systemic chemotherapy for recurrence are not as good as those of surgical resection. To the best of our knowledge, there are a few reports that aggressive radical surgery significantly prolonged the survival period as our case. This case was reported in accordance with the SCARE 2020 Guideline (Ref). CASE PRESENTATION: An 84-year-old woman was referred to our hospital for treatment of a primary RP tumour. At the age of 52-year-old, she underwent complete resection of an RP mass in 1991. Twenty-four years after the primary resection, metachronous recurrences occurred within the soft tissues, which were repeatedly resected. From 2015–2019, liver resections were performed thrice, and the patient survived with no signs of recurrence 1 year after the last surgery. CONCLUSION: Long-term survival of 29 years was achieved after undergoing over 20 surgical resections. Herein, we report the long-term survival of a patient who underwent repeated aggressive surgical resections for RP LMS recurrence anda literature review.