Cyto Reduction for Soft Tissue Sarcomas

Abstract

Eradication of all malignant disease is the uniform objective of therapy. Such eradication usually is achieved by surgical excision, whereas, in some instances a tumor may be best treated by chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or some combination of all three. Surgical excision, alone, as a definitive treatment of many gastrointestinal carcinomas yields a cure when the disease is diagnosed prior to extension though the gut wall and when adequate margins beyond the gross tumor are included in the resected specimen. This type of resection allows for a three-dimensional or circumferential excision of both tumor and surrounding tumor free tissues. Surgical excision of other tumors such as the papillary adenocarcinomas of the thyroid will be associated with long-term free interval even through a wide margin of tumor free tissue is not incorporated with the resected specimen; long-term thyroid replacement therapy facilitates suppression of subsequent tumor growth. Other tumors such as embryonal cell sarcomas in males and choriocarcinoma in females may be most effectively treated with chemotherapy with surgical excision being used primarily for diagnosis, cyto reduction and stern cell analysis.