Soft Tissue Tumors

Abstract

Malignant mesenchymal tumors are rare (they amount to 1–1.2% of the overall human burden of malignant tumors); however, there is large variability in their histological subtypes with different clinical, prognostic, and therapeutic consequences. Most soft tissue tumors are benign, located in superficial soft tissue. About one-third of the benign tumors are lipomas, and another one-third are fibrohistiocytic tumors. Three-fourths of the soft tissue sarcomas are located in the extremities, one-third of them are superficial, and two-thirds are deep-seated. Most of them present as symptomless and painless mass that do not influence function or cause cachexia and are recognized accidentally. The superficially located sarcomas may persist for a long time, with same size leading both the patient and the doctor to misinterpret them as a benign condition. Deep-seated soft tissue sarcomas reach greater sizes (on average 8–10 cm) until they are recognized. The local recurrence rate and their capacity for metastasing differ widely according the histological subtypes; the primary filter for the metastases is, however, the lung, like in case of bone sarcomas.