OBJECTIVETo investigate the outcome of standard treatment in stage III soft tissue sarcomas and the prognostic factors in these patients.

METHODSClinical, pathological, and therapeutic information of 67 patients with stage III soft tissue sarcomas were collected from Tianjin Medical University Cancer Hospital from January 2003 to January 2006. All these patients were treated with the same treatment program. Univariate analysis was performed on surgical margin, tumor sizes, tumor depth, metastasis free interval and neoadjuvant chemotherapy for the main endpoint, overall survival, and second endpoint, distant recurrence free survival (DRFS), the local recurrence rate was also analysed.

RESULTSUnivariate analysis indicated that tumor sizes, depths and metastasis free interval were related to the overall survival. Furthermore, the tumor sizes and the tumor depth were related to DRFS (P < 0.05). However, surgical margin and neoadjuvant chemotherapy showed no effect on the OS and DRFS (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in local recurrence rate in patients with different surgical margins.

CONCLUSIONSPatients with stage III soft tissue sarcoma might not benefit from wide resection in local control, DRFS, and OS. The tumor size and depth are important prognostic factors for OS. The pulmonary metastasis occurs during adjuvant chemotherapy predicts worse prognosis. Whether or not neoadjuvant chemotherapy improves OS and DRFS needs further prospective study.