Soft Tissue Sarcoma: A Decade of Experience in a South Asian Tertiary Care Hospital with a Review of International Literature

Abstract

Soft tissue sarcoma and its histomorphological sub types is an important for both prognosis and treatment. It deserves an extensive research, as there are good published literature's on the incidence of soft tissue sarcoma in the western population, but there is paucity of data from Asia, particularly on the epidemiology specifically to Southern Asia. We analyzed the Data, collected from the surgical pathology files. This Retrospective study included all the diagnosed cases of soft tissue sarcoma, including gastrointestinal tumor presented during the 10-year period, from July 2008 to March 2019 (10 years, 9 months) and include all age groups. Cases were then characterized according to their histomorphological sub types, age, sex, and the site involved by the sarcoma. The cases where diagnosis was not confirmed like differential diagnosis are not considered and not included in this study. The data was analyzed in SPSS version 26. Total 305 diagnosed cases of soft tissue sarcoma, met our selection criteria. The result shows that the soft tissue sarcoma are increased on yearly basis with eminent male predilection. The most common presented soft tissue sarcoma is GIST, followed by synovial sarcoma, undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma, and high-grade sarcoma NOS, in order of preference. The high female predilection is noted for leiomyosarcoma and chondrosarcoma. Most of the soft tissue sarcoma are associated with adult age (25 to 64 year) with total number of n: 206 cases (67.5%) and the most common site is the lower limb. It is also observed that the least common incidence of soft tissue sarcoma is noted in the toddler age group (2-3 years).This study concluded that the risk of soft tissue sarcoma exist throughout the lifespan (infants to elderly age) and continuously increasing in numbers. The adult age group followed by elderly age and male predominance are at high risk. However, the frequency of rhabdomyosarcoma is commonly seen in childhood.