Soft Tissue Sarcoma

Overview


By Howard Rosenthal, M.D. on Aug 04, 2008

 

SOFT TISSUE SARCOMA

 

Soft tissue sarcomas are a group of cancers that arise from the soft tissues of the body.  These tissues include the muscle, fat, blood vessels, nerve, and connective tissue, as well as others.  Soft tissue sarcomas, as a group, represent a very rare form of cancer representing approximately six to eight thousand new cancers each year in the United States.  Additionally, there are approximately 40 different types of soft tissue sarcomas, thus making each one an extreme rarity.

These malignant tumors are described and based on the tissue that they most closely represent and arise from.  They may arise from any tissue that does not typically represent an organ.  For example, liver, lung and colon are organs and cancers that arise within these organs are called carcinomas (i.e. colon carcinoma); whereas a tumor that is derived from a nerve cell is known as a nerve sarcoma or neurofibrosarcoma.

Sarcoma is the Greek word meaning fleshy growth.  These tumors typically are in fact, fleshy growths occurring within the extremities.  However, it is not uncommon to find soft tissue sarcomas occurring in any area of the body, including the chest, spine, and abdomen.  Sarcomas can metastasize or spread to other organs of the body.  Specifically and more preferentially they metastasize to the lungs.  If the tumor does in fact metastasize to the lungs, it remains a soft tissue sarcoma and is not described as a lung cancer.

Soft tissue sarcomas typically present as slow growing, painless masses in the extremities or thorax or abdomen.  Unfortunately, because they do not cause pain, they come to the physician's attention only after several months have gone by.  Many times, a patient will describe a recent history of injury or trauma to the vicinity of the tumor and therefore attributes the tumor to the trauma.  In fact, sarcomas are not caused by trauma and it is the trauma that merely brings the sarcoma to the patient's attention.  Additionally, there are no blood studies, laboratory tests or other preventive tools that can help identify a sarcoma prior to its mere presence.  While the traumatic incident did not produce the tumor; it is that incident which typically brings the sarcoma to the patient's attention.  Because of the lack of symptoms, it is very common that the tumors present as fairly significant large masses before they are brought to the physician's attention.

The treatment of soft tissue sarcomas consists of surgical resection of the primary tumor.  The surgery is a wide en bloc resection of the tumor with a cuff of normal tissue surrounding the tumor throughout all extents.  Wide en bloc resection means that the tumor is removed in one piece, with a cuff or shell of normal tissue, typically muscle, surrounding it.  This is the best way of ensuring that every single tumor cell has been removed.  Additional or adjuvant treatments are utilized frequently.  These treatments include the use of radiation as well as chemotherapy.  Radiation therapy is used to diminish the possibility and prevalence of local recurrence.  Once the tumor is removed or sometimes before the tumor is removed, radiation is delivered to the field of the tumor, which decreases the risk of the tumor recurring in that area.  Chemotherapy is utilized to try to diminish potential risk of spreading the tumor to other locations.  Using this multidisciplinary approach, the physicians and nurses of the Menorah Sarcoma Institute provide the most up to date and effective treatment for soft tissue sarcomas.

  

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