On extravisceral soft tissue sarcomas. Effectiveness of radiation treatment and problems of radiotherapy and radiosurgical treatment.

: A series of 355 extravisceral soft tissue sarcomas is presented with reference to the effectiveness of radiation treatment for each histological type and the problems of radiotherapy and surgical treatment. Liposarcoma was the most radiosensitive soft tissue sarcoma. By utilizing all types of treatment and especially radiosurgery with postoperative radiotherapy, the percentage of disease-free patients after a minimum of 3 years from treatment varied from 27% to 52.9% for the different types of sarcoma. Nevertheless, in most cases the effectiveness of radiotherapy was unpredictable. It was found that doses varying from 52-60 Gy, with 2 Gy for each of 26-30 applications within 6-8 weeks, were sufficient for radical treatments. In relation to unpredictability of radiotherapy results, it was concluded that preoperative was more advisable than postoperative treatment owing to the possibility to prove the effectiveness of radiotherapy. Postoperative treatment is useless in nonradiosensitive cases and might negatively affect surgical modalities.