Soft Tissue Sarcoma; Management and Treatment Outcome in a Tertiary Health Institution in Northern Nigeria

Soft tissue sarcoma constitutes 7% of all cancers in Nigeria. A complete staging of this tumour isimportant to evaluate the prognosis and plan the treatment in a multidisciplinary team. Managementof sarcoma includes surgery, which involve partial or complete excision of the tumour mass. Surgeryis the primary treatment modality for soft tissue sarcoma. Radiotherapy is useful in both localizedand metastatic disease. Reports have shown the benefit of radiation therapy in decreasing recurrencerate in positive margin post excision. It is also useful for palliation of some symptoms. Chemotherapyhas been shown to improve the survival of patients. Doxorubicin and Ifosfamide have shown betterresponse in patients with these malignancies. The outcome of patients with soft tissue sarcoma dependson the margins’ status post excision, performance status, grade, and stage of the disease.MATERIALS AND METHODSIt is a five year retrospective study of patients with soft tissue sarcoma seen in the departmentof radiotherapy and Oncology, Usmanu Danfodiyo University teaching hospital. The treatment andoverall survival at one year post diagnosis were reviewed with associating compounding variable.RESULTSA total of 123 patients were reviewed, out of which 69.9% of the patients had radiotherapy, and 64%of the patients who had radiotherapy received palliative dose. The commonest chemotherapy usedwas vincristine, which was used in 82% of the patients who had chemotherapy, while 76% receiveddoxorubicin and 10% had ifosfamide.The overall survival at one year was assessed in 112 patients. There was no significant differencebetween their age, gender, histological type and their survival at one year, however there was anassociation between the performance status (ECOG) and surgical excision status.CONCLUSIONThe outcome of patients with soft tissue sarcoma after diagnosis is determined by the performancestatus and the surgical excision margin. This will ultimately guide treatment of these groups ofmalignancies.