Pulmonary metastasectomy for soft tissue sarcomas: is it justified?

Pulmonary metastases are common in patients following resection for soft tissue sarcoma. Pulmonary resection of metastatic soft tissue sarcomas is widely practiced in surgical oncology. No randomized phase III trials are available, and data for this review were retrieved only from retrospective studies. This article addresses the issues of patient selection, surgical technique, and adjuvant chemotherapy, and provides the surgical oncologist with a current review of pulmonary metastasectomy in metastatic soft tissue sarcoma. In summary, there is a substantial body of evidence demonstrating that resection of soft tissue pulmonary metastases can be performed safely and with a low mortality rate. For a subset of highly selected patients, the overall results of a 5-year actuarial survival rate ranged between 25% and 37.6%. These outcomes exceed those normally associated with metastatic soft tissue sarcoma and are well comparable with surgical resection for other malignancies.