Background: The impact of lymph node metastases on survival in extremity soft tissue sarcomas has been studied for a long time with controversial results. The purpose of this study was to compare survival of patients with initial lymph node metastases with those having lymph node or distant metastases or both after initial curative surgery.
Methods: Patients treated between 1995 and 2000 for extremity soft tissue sarcoma were retrospectively studied in four groups: those with metastatic regional lymph nodes at the time of diagnosis, those with only regional lymph node recurrences, those with only distant metastatic relapses, and those with both regional lymph node recurrences and distant metastatic relapses, all of the last three groups after initial curative surgery. The impact of timing of lymph node metastases on disease-free and overall survival was evaluated.
Results: A total of 110 patients (73 men) with a median age of 45 years were eligible for the study. Three-year disease-free survival was significantly longer in patients with initial regional lymph node metastases than in patients with only lymph node recurrences after curative surgery (p = 0.04) and patients with initial (p = 0.0002) and recurrent (p = 0.0004) regional lymph node metastases had longer disease-free survival than patients with distant metastases. Overall survival difference between patients with initial regional lymph node metastases and patients with only lymph node recurrences after curative surgery was significant at 5 years (p = 0.01).
Conclusions: It is logical to separate patients with initial lymph node metastases from those with distant metastases in staging and to treat patients with initial lymph node metastases with radical surgical interventions if complete tumor resection seems feasible.