Childhood liposarcoma: a single-institutional twenty-year experience.

A retrospective observational study was performed on a series of 12 consecutive pediatric patients treated over a 20-year period at the Istituto Nazionale Tumori, Milano. Conservative surgery was the treatment of choice in all patients; radical excision was obtained at diagnosis in 9 cases and after primary chemotherapy in 1 case. Five patients were subjected to surgery alone, and one to postoperative radiotherapy. After a median follow-up of 11 years (range 1-20), all the patients were alive without evidence of disease, 11 in first complete remission, and 1 after local relapse. In agreement with other reports, the authors underline the unquestionable pivotal role of radical surgery in the treatment of liposarcoma. The high proportion of resectable tumors accounts for the excellent survival of the patients in this study. The role of both adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy is uncertain and awaits multicentric cooperative prospective studies.