Prognosis following locally recurrent soft‐tissue sarcoma. A staging system based on primary and recurrent tumour characteristics

Abstract

We have shown that the clinical growth rate of local recurrence from soft‐tissue sarcoma could be expressed as a growthrate index (GRI) which was predictive for metastasis, and which was able to identify 2 equal populations of good (80% 2‐year MFS) and poor survivors (33%). We now report the associations between characteristics of the primary and GRI, and combine primary and locally recurrent tumour characteristics in a staging system. We studied 460 adult patients with soft‐tissue sarcomas of the extremities and trunk wall who were diagnosed and treated between 1964 and 1990, of whom 134 developed local recurrences and 151 metastases. The association of primary tumour size, histologic malig..