OBJECTIVE: To determine the prognostic factors related to the development of remote metastases in patients with the diagnosis of soft tissue sarcoma (STS) in the extremities. METHODS: 30 patients treated with surgical resection of STS with a mean follow-up of 36.5 ± 12.2 months were evaluated using the following prognosis factors: age, gender, location, depth, location in anatomic compartments, size, handling before final treatment, surgical borders, degree of histological malignancy, presence of necrosis, and histologically-verified vascular invasion. Such factors were correlated to the development of metastases by univariate analysis, values of p < 0.05 being considered significant. RESULTS: The univariate analysis showed a correlation of the development of metastases and the extra-compartmental location (p = 0.002), size > 10 cm (p = 0.007), the high degree of malignancy (p = 0.007), the presence of necrosis (p = 0.002) and the presence of vascular invasion (p = 0.034). Age (p = 1.000), gender (0.709), location in body segments (p = 0.298), depth (p = 0,288), surgical border (p = 0.419), and prior handling of the tumor (p = 1.000) did not show a correlation with the occurrence of remote metastases. In the multivariate analysis, only the extra-compartmental location (p = 0.008), size (p = 0.018), and the presence of vascular invasion (p = 0.043) were significant. CONCLUSION: The development of remote metastases in patients with soft tissue sarcoma depends on the extra-compartmental location, on the size (> 10 cm), on the high degree of malignancy seen in histology, on the presence of necrosis, and on vascular invasion seen in histology.
Soft tissue neoplasms; Prognosis; Neoplasm metastasis
