Introduction. Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are rare malignant tumors. The main treatment is radical surgery, but patients with inoperable STS are mainly treated with chemotherapy (usually ifosfamide-doxorubicin (ifo-doxo) combination or doxorubicin (doxo)). Various foreign studi es have compared the two chemotherapy protocols; however, the provided results are conflicting.
Material and methods. We conducted a retrospective analysis of 388 patients' clinical data. During the analysis we assessed demographics, primary tumor localization, TNM clinical stages, the sel ected treatment strategy and the influence of these factors on overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) rates.
Results. Analysis group consisted of 161 men (41.49%) and 227 women (58.51%), mean age 54±17 years. Distribution of patients according to clinical stages: I 85 (21.91%), II 49 (12.63%), III 84 (21.65%), IV 101 (26.03%), undefined 69 (17.78%). 2-year OS according to clini cal stages: I 93%, II 85%, III 66%, 46%, p<0.0001; 5-year OS respectively: 91%, 80%, 50%, 16%, p<0.0001. 2-year PFS according to clinical stages:
I 89%, II 70%, III 46%, IV 22%, p<0.0001; 5-year PFS respectively: 88%, 50%, 30%, 8%, p<0.0001. 2-year OS according to used chemotherapy: doxo - 39%, ifo-doxo - 44%; 5-year OS: doxo - 39%, ifo-doxo - 15%, p=0.227. 2-year PFS according to used chemotherapy: doxo - 23%, ifo-doxo - 11%; 5-year PFS: doxo - 16%, ifo-doxo - 6%, p=0.081.
Conclusion. The largest part of STS patients were elderly, women suffered from STS more often than men. Almost 50% of STS cases were diagnosed with a higher clinical stage. Higher clinical stage resulted in significantly worse 2 and 5 year OS and PFS rates. Summarizing the results, we assume that the current radical ifosfamide-doxorubicin combination does not prolong patients' survival rates compared with doxo-rubicin monotherapy.
Keywords: soft tissue sarcoma, inoperable STS, ifosfamide, doxorubicin, chemo-ther apy.
