A histological positive margin after surgery is correlated with high local re-recurrence rate in patients with recurrent myxofibrosarcoma.

OBJECTIVE

Myxofibrosarcoma has high frequency of local recurrence after surgery. To determine an optimal treatment for recurrent tumors, clinical features of recurrent cases should be characterized.

METHODS

We performed a retrospective analysis of 30 patients with recurrent myxofibrosarcoma who underwent surgery between 1999 and 2008.

RESULTS

A negative margin after surgery was achieved in only 12 patients (40.0%). The 5-year re-recurrence free-survival rate was 31.7%. The 5-year re-recurrence free survival for those with positive histological margin and those with negative margin were 9.8% and 62.3%, respectively, which indicated that a positive margin was the significant predictor of poor prognosis (P = 0.006). In 21 patients with recurrent myxofibrosarcoma in the extremities, 10 patients (47.6%) ultimately underwent amputation in the follow-up period and the 5-year amputation-free survival rate was 62.5%. The 5-year metastasis-free survival rates and the 5-year overall survival rates were 84.8% and 83.6%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

In this study, the majority of recurrent cases could not achieve negative margins; notably, a positive margin is a significant poor prognostic indicator of local re-recurrence in patients with recurrent myxofibrosarcoma. To control local recurrence of myxofibrosarcoma was extremely difficult and amputation is often needed in the extremity cases.