Abstract
Purpose. – Conserving surgery combined with radiotherapy in presence of local recurrence risk factors is standard treatment of soft tissue sarcomas, a group of rare and heterogeneous tumours. Radiotherapy is performed before or after surgery. In neoadjuvant setting, late radiation-induced toxicity is reduced and pathological response to radiotherapy could be achieved. A complete pathological response to radiotherapy has recently been shown to predict better survival. Our study aims at identifying predictive factors of pathological response to neoadjuvant radiotherapy (clinical, radiological or histological) of soft tissue sarcomas.Patients and methods. – Clinical, imaging (MRI: perilesional oedema, necrosis, tumour heterogeneity, vasculonervous relationships) and pathological (pathological subtype, tumour grade, anticipated/obtained resection quality) data were retrospectively collected. Tumour response (imaging and pathological), patient outcome, acute and late radiation-induced toxicity, predictive factors of pathological response to neoadjuvant radiotherapy were studied. The 2-test or exact-Fisher test (qualitative variables) and by Student’s t-test or Kruskal-Wallis test (quantitative variables) were used for statistical analysis.Results. – From April 2017 to April 2021, neoadjuvant radiotherapy (50 Gy in 25 fractions) followed by surgical excision was performed to 36 consecutive patients with liposarcomas (n = 17/36), or undifferentiated sarcomas (n = 8/36). MRI response was complete in 1 patient, partial in 9 patients (n = 9/36, 25%), stable in 21 patients (n = 21/36, 58%) or in progression in 5 patients (n = 5/36, 14%). Pathological response was observed in 22 patients (61%). No grade 3-4 acute radiation-induced toxicity was observed. Regarding late toxicity, 28% of patients had grade 1–2 oedema (n = 10/36), 39% had a grade 1 fibrosis (n = 14/36), and 30% grade 1 pain (n = 11/36). No predictive factors of response to radiotherapy was statistically significant.Conclusions. – Neoadjuvant radiotherapy is well-tolerated. No clinical, radiological or pathological predictive factors was identified for radiotherapy tumour response.