Advances in chemotherapy for patients with extremity soft tissue sarcoma.

Doxorubicin-based chemotherapy does not appear to offer a survival benefit to patients who have high-risk primary extremity soft tissue sarcomas, whereas ifosfamide-based chemotherapy does. This benefit is likely histology- and size-specific. Until a less toxic targeted systemic therapy is developed, treatment with ifosfamide should be strongly considered in patients who have high-risk primary extremity soft tissue sarcomas.