Adjuvant chemotherapy for extremity soft-tissue sarcomas in adults.

Due to the peculiar characteristics of sarcomas, which include classification problems, heterogeneity of presentation, and treatment, no consensus exists regarding the best strategies to follow. In particular, there is no consensus on the use of chemotherapy in localized high-grade sarcomas, with contradictory results reported in medical literature. Moreover, in the last 2 years no papers reporting new data have been published. Consequently, the updated results of the Rizzoli randomized study performed in the 1980s, together with the results of the new Italian randomized study closed in November 1996, are reported in this paper. Both studies confirm the advantage of adjuvant chemotherapy in disease-free and overall surivall in very select groups of high-grade sarcomas of the extremities.