Adjuvant chemotherapy—Radiotherapy—Chemotherapy sandwich protocol in resectable soft tissue sarcoma: An updated single-center analysis of 104 cases

Adjuvant therapy of local soft tissue sarcomas (STS) after wide surgical excision still is a topic under controversial scientific debate. In this single center report we have offered an adjuvant “sandwich” therapy protocol consisting of 4 cycles of doxorubicin (75 mg/m² i.v. over 1 h on day 1) followed by ifosfamide (5 g/m² i.v. over 24 h starting on day 1) and local radiotherapy scheduled between chemotherapy cycles 2 and 3 to 104 consecutive patients after wide surgical excision (R0) of histologically proven high-grade STS. After a mean follow-up of 39 months (range 5–194 months) relapse free survival (RFS) at 2 and 5 years was 68.1% (95% CI, 58.5–77.7%) and 61.2% (95% CI, 50.4–71.6%). When analyzing the 82 STS cases of the extremities only 2- and 5-year RFS was 74.0% (95% CI, 64.0–84.0%) and 65.3% (95% CI, 53.7–76.9%). By intent-to-treat analysis, the overall survival (OS) at 2 years was 87.3% (95% CI, 80.5–94.1%) and 75.6% (95% CI, 65.2–86.0%) at 5 years, while OS for STS of the extremities only cohort was 90.5% (95% CI, 83.7–97.3%) and 79.0% (95% CI, 68.4–89.6%), respectively. Tolerability of the treatment was good. This analysis demonstrates the feasibility of adjuvant chemoradiotherapy and reflects the results of the long lasting intensive multidisciplinary team approach at our “high-volume” sarcoma center. The long-term survival in our patients is among the highest reported and the low local and distant recurrence rate in high-risk STS is at least comparable to the published data.