Standard Treatment Options
Treatment Options Under Clinical Evaluation
Current Clinical Trials

With the possible exception of infants with congenital fibrosarcoma, the prognosis for patients with recurrent or progressive disease is poor. The selection of further treatment depends on many factors, including the site of recurrence, prior therapy, and individual patient considerations. Local recurrence or isolated pulmonary recurrence should be treated with complete resection. All patients with recurrent tumors should be offered enrollment in current drug studies.

Resection is the standard treatment for recurrent pediatric nonrhabdomyosarcomatous soft tissue sarcomas. If the patient has not yet received radiation therapy, adjuvant radiation should be considered after local excision of the recurrent tumor. Limb-sparing procedures with adjuvant brachytherapy has been evaluated in adults but has not been studied extensively in children. For some children with extremity sarcomas who have received previous radiation therapy, amputation may be the only therapeutic option. No prospective trial has been able to prove that enhanced local control of pediatric soft tissue sarcomas will ultimately improve survival. Therefore, treatment should be individualized for the site of recurrence and biologic characteristics (e.g., grade, invasiveness, and size) of the tumor. All patients should be considered for enrollment in clinical trials. Pulmonary metastasectomy may achieve prolonged disease control for some patients.[1] A large, retrospective analysis of patients with recurrent soft tissue sarcoma showed that isolated local relapse had a better prognosis and that resection of pulmonary metastases improved the probability of survival.[2]

Different chemotherapy regimens are currently under investigation.

Check for U.S. clinical trials from NCI's PDQ Cancer Clinical Trials Registry that are now accepting patients with recurrent childhood soft tissue sarcoma ¹. The list of clinical trials can be further narrowed by location, drug, intervention, and other criteria.

General information about clinical trials is also available from the NCI Web site ².

References

1. Belal A, Salah E, Hajjar W, et al.: Pulmonary metastatectomy for soft tissue sarcomas: is it valuable? J Cardiovasc Surg (Torino) 42 (6): 835-40, 2001.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
2. Zagars GK, Ballo MT, Pisters PW, et al.: Prognostic factors for disease-specific survival after first relapse of soft-tissue sarcoma: analysis of 402 patients with disease relapse after initial conservative surgery and radiotherapy. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 57 (3): 739-47, 2003.  [PUBMED Abstract]