The clinical effect of a positive surgical margin and adjuvant postoperative radiotherapy in the treatment of resectable desmoid tumors.

Desmoid tumors (DTs) are benign tumors that exhibit fibroblastic proliferation, which arises from fascial or musculoaponeurotic structures. The aim of this study was to investigate the characteristics and outcomes of patients with resectable DTs. A total of 21 patients were included and their clinicopathological characteristics were retrospectively analyzed. The 21 patients (16 females and 5 males) were identified through reviewing the patient charts at our institute. The tumor was located in the lower extremities in 7 cases, in the upper extremities in 4 cases, in the abdominal region in 9 cases and in the neck region in 1 case. Patients who had been initially treated by surgical excision were included in the study. Of these 21 patients, a positive surgical margin (SM) was reported in 11 patients, 7 of whom received postoperative radiotherapy (RT). Ten patients had a negative SM and 6 received RT. A total of 5 patients (46%) in the positive SM group and 4 (40%) in the negative SM group had documented disease relapse (P>0.05). The median relapse-free survival (RFS) was 20.5 months for the patients treated by surgery alone and 50 months for those treated with surgery followed by adjuvant RT (P>0.05). Age, gender, SM and adjuvant RT were not identified as predictors of recurrence. No predictive factors appeared to indicate local DT recurrence following surgery.