Search

Aim: The aim of this pilot study was to assess whether an electronic nose can detect patients with soft tissue sarcoma (STS) based on volatile organic compound profiles in exhaled breath. Patients & methods: In this cross-sectional pilot study, patients with primary STS and healthy controls, matched on sex and age, were included for breath analysis. Machine learning techniques were used to develop the best-fitting model. Results: Fifty-nine breath samples were collected (29 STS and 30 control) from March 2018 to March 2022. The final model yielded a c-statistic of 0.85 with a sensitivity of 83% and specificity of 60%. Conclusion: This study suggests that exhaled volatile organic compound analysis could serve as a noninvasive diagnostic biomarker for the detection of STS with a good performance. Plain language summary Diagnosing soft tissue sarcoma (STS) among the large number of benign soft tissue tumors is challenging. There is a serious need for a novel and easy tool that could accurately detect patients with STS. This study aimed to assess how well an easy-to-use electronic nose could differentiate between patients with STS and those without STS based on their exhaled breath. This is the first pilot study to reveal that an electronic nose could serve as a diagnostic tool for the detection of STS with a good performance. Future studies are needed to validate the findings in larger cohorts.

Introduction: This subgroup analysis of undifferentiated pleomorphic soft tissue sarcoma of the extremity (eUPS) from the PERSARC collaborative group aimed to achieve a more personalized multimodality treatment approach for primary eUPS in elderly patients.Material and methods: A multicenter retrospective study including primary high-grade eUPS surgically treated with curative intent between 2000 and 2016. Overall survival (OS), local recurrence (LR) and distant metastasis (DM) curves were calculated by Kaplan Meier analysis. Cox proportional hazard models were used to determine the effect of radiotherapy.Results: From a total of 2511 patients with extremity soft tissue sarcoma (eSTS) of the PERSARC study collaborative; 703 patients with eUPS were included in this study. In elderly patients with eUPS 5-year OS, LR and DM were 35.4 (95%CI 29.3-42.8), 17.7 (95%CI 12.7-22.6) and 24.6 (95%CI 19.1-30.1). eUPS was significantly less treated with radiotherapy compared with other eSTS, especially in elderly patients. Patients with R1-R2 margins treated with radiotherapy had about half the risk of developing LR compared with patients treated without radiotherapy (HR = 0.454, p = 0.033).Conclusion: Elderly patients with eUPS were less often treated with radiotherapy and showed higher LR. Nowadays, given an increasing life expectancy in elderly patients, multimodality treatment should be considered. (C) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Objective: The aim of the study is to assess the effect of perioperative chemo-therapy (CTX) in patients with grade II-III extremity soft tissue sarcoma (eSTS) on overall survival (OS) and evaluate whether the PERSARC prediction tool could identify patients with eSTS more likely to benefit from CTX.Methods: Patients (18-70 years) with primary high-grade eSTS surgically treated with cura-tive intent were included in the retrospective cohort study. The effect of any perioperative CTX and anthracycline + ifosfamide (AI)-based CTX on OS was investigated in three PERSARC-risk groups (high/intermediate/low). The PERSARC-risk groups were defined by the 33% and 66% quantile of the predicted 5-year OS of the study population equal to a 5-year OS of 65.8% and 79.8%, respectively. The effect of CTX on OS was investigated with weighted Kaplan-Meier curves and multivariable Cox models with an interaction between risk group and CTX.Results: This study included 5683 patients. The weighted Kaplan-Meier curves did not demonstrate a beneficial effect of any CTX and AI-based CTX on OS in the overall population. However, in the high PERSARC-risk group the 5-year OS of AI-based CTX was significantly better than no CTX (69.8% vs 59.0%, respectively, p Z 0.004) (HR 0.66, 95% CI 0.53-0.83).Conclusions: This study demonstrated a beneficial effect of AI-based CTX on OS in a selected group of high-risk patients with an absolute survival benefit of 11% as stratified by the PERSARC prediction tool. However, no beneficial effect of CTX on OS was found in the overall population of patients with primary high-grade eSTS younger than 70 years.(c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Background. With soft-tissue sarcoma of the extremity (ESTS) representing a heterogenous group of tumors, management decisions are often made in multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings. To optimize outcome, nomograms are more commonly used to guide individualized treatment decision making. Purpose. To evaluate the influence of Personalised Sarcoma Care (PERSARC) on treatment decisions for patients with high-grade ESTS and the ability of the MDT to accurately predict overall survival (OS) and local recurrence (LR) rates. Methods. Two consecutive meetings were organised. During the first meeting, 36 cases were presented to the MDT. OS and LR rates without the use of PERSARC were estimated by consensus and preferred treatment was recorded for each case. During the second meeting, OS/LR rates calculated with PERSARC were presented to the MDT. Differences between estimated OS/LR rates and PERSARC OS/LR rates were calculated. Variations in preferred treatment protocols were noted. Results. The MDT underestimated OS when compared to PERSARC in 48.4% of cases. LR rates were overestimated in 41.9% of cases. With the use of PERSARC, the proposed treatment changed for 24 cases. Conclusion. PERSARC aids the MDT to optimize individualized predicted OS and LR rates, hereby guiding patient-centered care and shared decision making.

Aim: This study was interested in extremity leiomyosarcoma with focus on clinical outcome after surgery with or without adjuvant therapy. Patients and Methods: A retrospective case series of all patients with leiomyosarcoma, surgically treated between 2000 and 2015 and a minimum follow-up of 2 years, was drawn from institutional databases in Belgium and the Netherlands. Postoperative complications were reported with the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) and the Henderson classification. Results: Seventy-five patients were operated on, of whom 47 underwent (neo)adjuvant therapy. Infection was observed in 11 patients, seven associated with (neo)adjuvant radiotherapy. Dermatological complaints vvere observed in 26 patients, 10 associated with (neo)adjuvant radiotherapy. Overall survival was 60%. Local recurrence occurred in 11 (15%) patients. Conclusion: This study describes favourable clinical outcome following (neo)adjuvant radiotherapy. In the future, larger databases on leiomyosarcoma should enhance the power of these findings and define the benefits of adjuvant therapy in leiomyosarcoma.

Purpose: No studies extensively compared the young adults (YA, 18-39 years), middle-aged (40-69 years), and elderly (≥70 years) population with primary high-grade extremity soft tissue sarcoma (eSTS). This study aimed to determine whether the known effect of age on overall survival (OS) and disease progression can be explained by differences in tumour characteristics and treatment protocol among the YA, middle-aged and elderly population in patients with primary high-grade eSTS treated with curative intent. Methods: In this retrospective multicentre study, inclusion criteria were patients with primary high-grade eSTS of 18 years and older, surgically treated with curative intent between 2000 and 2016. Cox proportional hazard models and a multistate model were used to determine the association of age on OS and disease progression. Results: A total of 6260 patients were included in this study. YA presented more often after 'whoops'-surgery or for reresection due to residual disease, and with more deep-seated tumours. Elderly patients presented more often with grade III and larger (≥10 cm) tumours. After adjustment for the imbalance in tumour and treatment characteristics the hazard ratio for OS of the middle-aged population is 1.47 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.23-1.76) and 3.13 (95% CI: 2.59-3.78) in the elderly population, compared with YA. Discussion: The effect of age on OS could only partially be explained by the imbalance in the tumour characteristics and treatment variables. The threefold higher risk of elderly could, at least partially, be explained by a higher other-cause mortality. The results might also be explained by a different tumour behaviour or suboptimal treatment in elderly compared with the younger population. Keywords: Adolescents and young adults; Elderly; Extremities; Metastasis; Middle-aged; Recurrence; Soft tissue sarcoma; Survival.

Aims Our aim was to develop and validate nomograms that would predict the cumulative incidence of sarcoma-specific death (CISSD) and disease progression (CIDP) in patients with localized high-grade primary central and dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma. Methods The study population consisted of 391 patients from two international sarcoma centres (development cohort) who had undergone definitive surgery for a localized high-grade (histological grade II or III) conventional primary central chondrosarcoma or dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma. Disease progression captured the first event of either metastasis or local recurrence. An independent cohort of 221 patients from three additional hospitals was used for external validation. Two nomograms were internally and externally validated for discrimination (c-index) and calibration plot. Results In the development cohort, the CISSD at ten years was 32.9% (95% confidence interval (CI) 19.8% to 38.4%). Age at diagnosis, grade, and surgical margin were found to have significant effects on CISSD and CIDP in multivariate analyses. Maximum tumour diameter was also significantly associated with CISSD. In the development cohort, the c-indices for CISSD and CIDP at five years were 0.743 (95% CI 0.700 to 0.819) and 0.761 (95% CI 0.713 to 0.800), respectively. When applied to the validation cohort, the c-indices for CISSD and CIDP at five years were 0.839 (95% CI 0.763 to 0.916) and 0.749 (95% CI 0.672 to 0.825), respectively. The calibration plots for these two nomograms demonstrated good fit. Conclusion Our nomograms performed well on internal and external validation and can be used to predict CISSD and CIDP after resection of localized high-grade conventional primary central and dedifferentiated chondrosarcomas. They provide a new tool with which clinicians can assess and advise individual patients about their prognosis. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2020;102-B(12):1752–1759.

The impact of MRI on early detection of local recurrence (LR) in high-grade soft-tissue sarcomas (STS) is unsubstantiated. To identify the contribution of MRI criteria including dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI and knowledge of surgical margins that can be used in detecting recurrence prior to obvious proven presence of LR in soft-tissue sarcomas. The secondary aim was to determine causes for misdiagnosing LR. MRI of 23 patients (12 men; mean age, 59.7 years ± 16.5 years) with LR of STS and that of 22 age- and histology-matched controls with STS but without LR were retrospectively analyzed by two musculoskeletal radiologists. Preoperative MRI characteristics (conventional and DCE) were compared to those of MRIs made after treatment, but before LR was proven. Likelihood of recurrence was rated on a 5-point Likert scale for morphological and dynamic assessment separately, before and after adding knowledge of surgical margins. Descriptive statistics and receiver operating characteristic analysis were performed. Differentiation of LR from post-therapeutic changes was the highest combining result of conventional MRI, DCE-MRI, and knowledge of surgical margins (area under the curve (AUC) 0.779), followed by DCE-MRI (AUC 0.706) and conventional MRI (AUC 0.648). Suboptimal MRI technique and overcalling post-therapeutic changes in microscopic positive margins were the main reasons for false negative and false positive results, respectively. MRI including DCE improves the detection of recurrent, clinically silent soft-tissue sarcoma when combined with knowledge of achieved surgical margins. LR may be missed on inadequate MRI protocols. • Dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI is useful in the differentiation of recurrent soft-tissue sarcoma and post-therapeutic fibrosis. • Knowledge of surgical margins substantially increases the value of MRI in detecting recurrent soft-tissue sarcoma. • MR with all three image orientations, covering the entire part of the extremity in at least one sequence and comparison to initial tumor characteristics and location, is beneficial.

Background and Objectives Abdominal metastases (AM) from soft tissue sarcoma (STS) are rare and prognosis is poor. The aims of the study were to (a) identify risk factors for the development of AM and to (b) investigate the outcome of AM‐patients. Methods Seven‐hundred‐sixty‐nine STS‐patients with localised disease at diagnosis treated at three tumour centres (2000‐2016) were retrospectively included (409 males; mean age, 55.6 years [range, 8‐96 years]; median follow‐up, 4.1 years [interquartile‐range, 2.5‐6.6 years]). Results Two‐hundred‐two patients (26.3%) developed secondary metastases, and 24 of them AM (3.1%). Ten patients developed first AM (FAM) after a mean of 2.4 years and 14 patients late AM (LAM, after being diagnosed with metastases to other sites) after a mean of 2.0 years. Patients with liposarcoma had a significantly higher risk of developing AM (P = .007), irrespective of grading. There was no difference in post‐metastasis‐survival (PMS) between patients with AM at any time point and those with metastases to other sites (P = .585). Patients with LAM or FAM showed no difference in post‐abdominal‐metastasis‐survival (P = .884). Conclusions Survival in patients with AM is poor, irrespective of whether they develop secondarily to other metastases or not. Patients at high‐risk of AM (ie, liposarcoma) may be followed‐up regularly by abdominal‐ultrasound/CT.

Currently, patients with extremity soft tissue sarcoma (eSTS) who have undergone curative resection are followed up by a heuristic approach, not covering individual patient risks. The aim of this study was to develop two flexible parametric competing risk regression models (FPCRRMs) for local recurrence (LR) and distant metastasis (DM), aiming at providing guidance on how to individually follow-up patients. Three thousand sixteen patients (1931 test, 1085 validation cohort) with high-grade eSTS were included in this retrospective, multicenter study. Histology (9 categories), grading (time-varying covariate), gender, age, tumor size, margins, (neo)adjuvant radiotherapy (RTX), and neoadjuvant chemotherapy (CTX) were used in the FPCRRMs and performance tested with Harrell-C-index. Median follow-up was 50 months (interquartile range: 23.3&ndash, 95 months). Two hundred forty-two (12.5%) and 603 (31.2%) of test cohort patients developed LR and DM. Factors significantly associated with LR were gender, size, histology, neo- and adjuvant RTX, and margins. Parameters associated with DM were margins, grading, gender, size, histology, and neoadjuvant RTX. C-statistics was computed for internal (C-index for LR: 0.705, for DM: 0.723) and external cohort (C-index for LR: 0.683, for DM: 0.772). Depending on clinical, pathological, and patient-related parameters, LR- and DM-risks vary. With the present model, implemented in the updated Personalised Sarcoma Care (PERSARC)-app, more individualized prediction of LR/DM-risks is made possible.

Background: Prognostic nomograms for patients with extremity soft tissue sarcoma (eSTS) typically predict survival or the occurrence of local recurrence or distant metastasis at time of surgery. Our aim was to develop and externally validate a dynamic prognostic nomogram for overall survival in eSTS survivors for use during follow-up. Methods: All primary eSTS patients operated with curative intent between 1994 and 2013 at three European and one Canadian sarcoma centers formed the development cohort. Patients with Fédération Française des Centres de Lutte Contre le Cancer (FNCLCC) grade II and grade III eSTS operated between 2000 and 2016 at seven other European reference centers formed the external validation cohort. We used a landmark analysis approach and a multivariable Cox model to create a dynamic nomogram; the prediction window was fixed at five years. A backward procedure based on the Akaike Information Criterion was adopted for variable selection. We tested the nomogram performance in terms of calibration and discrimination. Findings: The development and validation cohorts included 3740 and 893 patients, respectively. The variables selected applying the backward procedure were patient's age, tumor size and its interaction with landmark time, tumor FNCLCC grade and its interaction with landmark time, histology, and both local recurrence and distant metastasis (as first event) indicator variables. The nomogram showed good calibration and discrimination. Harrell C indexes at different landmark times were between 0.776 (0.761–0.790) and 0.845 (0.823–0.862) in the development series and between 0.675 (0.643–0.704) and 0.810 (0.775–0.844) in the validation series. Interpretation: A new dynamic nomogram is available to predict 5-year overall survival at different times during the first three years of follow-up in patients operated for primary eSTS. This nomogram allows physicians to update the individual survival prediction during follow-up on the basis of baseline variables, time elapsed from surgery and first-event history. Keywords: Dynamic prediction, Landmark analysis, Prognostic nomogram, Sarcoma, Soft tissue sarcoma: Survivors

IntroductionMetastasectomy is hypothesised to improve OS in metastatic STS, but evidence in favour of this approach derives from non-controlled single-arm cohorts affected by selection bias. The objective was to quantify the effect of metastasectomy vs. non-surgical management on overall survival (OS) in patients with metachronous metastases from extremity- and trunk soft tissue sarcoma (STS).Materials and methodsFrom a population of 1578 STS patients, 135 patients who underwent surgery for localised STS at two European centres between 1998 and 2015 and developed metachronous STS metastases were included. Propensity score analyses with inverse-probability-of-treatment-weights (IPTW) and landmark analyses were performed to control for selection and immortal time bias, respectively.ResultsOS was significantly longer in the 68 patients undergoing metastasectomy than in the 67 patients who were treated non-invasively for their metastasis (10-year OS: 23% vs. 4%; hazard ratio (HR) = 0.34, 95% CI: 0.22–0.53, p ConclusionIn this observational bi-centre study, metastasectomy was associated with prolonged survival in patients with metachronous STS metastases. In the absence of randomized studies, our results indicate that metastasectomy should be considered as an important treatment option for metachronous STS metastases.

Background: Up to 40% of patients with idiopathic clubfoot who are treated with the Ponseti method experience recurrence of deformity. Many of these patients receive surgery (e.g., anterior tibial tendon transfer). An alternative approach for recurrent clubfoot is repeat Ponseti casting. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcome of repeat Ponseti casting in the treatment of recurrent clubfoot. Methods: Patients with recurrent idiopathic clubfoot who were treated at our hospital, between 2004 and 2012, with repeat serial casting and bracing (the recurrent group) were eligible for inclusion in the study. The recurrent group and a control group of randomly selected patients seen during the same period who had not had recurrence were compared with respect to demographic data, age at the time of treatment, number of casts, subsequent surgical intervention(s), and the Disease-Specific Instrument (DSI) clubfoot scale. Patients were deemed to have a successful outcome if they had a well-corrected foot (defined as dorsiflexion of ≥10°, hindfoot in valgus, and a straight lateral border) at the time of follow-up. Results: Of a total of 71 eligible patients with clubfeet, 35 patients participated. At the time of follow-up, success rates were 74% for the recurrent group and 83% for the control group. Dorsiflexion past neutral was significantly higher in the control group than the patient group (20° versus 12°, respectively; p < 0.001). Ninety-five percent of the control subjects had a straight lateral border in comparison with 78% in the recurrent group (p = 0.004). Likewise, 97% of controls had the hindfoot in valgus in comparison with 80% of the recurrent group (p = 0.02). There was a significant difference in the ability to squat (76% in the control group and 43% in the recurrent group; p = 0.03). There was no difference between groups in the total outcome of the DSI. Conclusions: Recurrence was seen in 19% (71) of 382 children who were eligible for our study who were typically discharged after the age of 5 years from our clinic, indicating the importance of continued follow-up until after that age. Treatment with casting was successful in many patients and may be a reasonable choice for recurrent idiopathic clubfeet. Level of Evidence: Therapeutic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.

Background To support shared decision-making, we developed the first prediction model for patients with primary soft-tissue sarcomas of the extremities (ESTS) which takes into account treatment modalities, including applied radiotherapy (RT) and achieved surgical margins. The PERsonalised SARcoma Care (PERSARC) model, predicts overall survival (OS) and the probability of local recurrence (LR) at 3, 5 and 10 years. Aim Development and validation, by internal validation, of the PERSARC prediction model. Methods The cohort used to develop the model consists of 766 ESTS patients who underwent surgery, between 2000 and 2014, at five specialised international sarcoma centres. To assess the effect of prognostic factors on OS and on the cumulative incidence of LR (CILR), a multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression and the Fine and Gray model were estimated. Predictive performance was investigated by using internal cross validation (CV) and calibration. The discriminative ability of the model was determined with the C-index. Results Multivariate Cox regression revealed that age and tumour size had a significant effect on OS. More importantly, patients who received RT showed better outcomes, in terms of OS and CILR, than those treated with surgery alone. Internal validation of the model showed good calibration and discrimination, with a C-index of 0.677 and 0.696 for OS and CILR, respectively. Conclusions The PERSARC model is the first to incorporate known clinical risk factors with the use of different treatments and surgical outcome measures. The developed model is internally validated to provide a reliable prediction of post-operative OS and CILR for patients with primary high-grade ESTS. Level of significance level III.

Background: Diabetes and particularly high blood glucose levels are implicated in neurodegeneration. One of the hallmarks of neurodegeneration is protein aggregation. We investigated the presence of protein aggregation in the frontal brain of Zucker diabetic fatty (ZDF) rats, an animal model for diabetes. Further, the effect of NaHS in suppressing protein aggregation in cultured brain slices from ZDF was assessed.Results: The levels of protein synthesis, protein/gene expression, autophagy and anti-oxidant defense were evaluated in ZDF and control (Lean) brains.Compared to Lean, ZDF brains displayed a significant increase in protein aggregates, p-tau, fibronectin expression and protein glycosylation. Increased phosphorylation of mTOR and S6 ribosomal protein in ZDF indicated higher protein synthesis, while the increase in ubiquitinated proteins and LC3-I in ZDF brains accompanied by lower LC3-II expression and LC3-II/LC3-I levels indicated the blockage of proteolytic pathways. CBS (cystathionine beta synthase) protein and mRNA expression and thiol group levels in ZDF brains were lower compared to Lean. ZDF brains show a higher level of reactive oxygen species. In vitro NaHS treatment normalized proteostasis while counteracting oxidative stress.Conclusion: Our data demonstrate increased protein synthesis and aggregation in the diabetic ZDF rat brain, which was reversible by NaHS treatment. This is the first report on the potential use of NaHS as a novel strategy against protein aggregation in diabetic brain.

Werner syndrome (WS) protein is involved in DNA repair and its truncation causes Werner syndrome, an autosomal recessive genetic disorder with a premature aging phenotype. WRN protein mutation is currently known as the primary cause of WS. In cultured WS fibroblasts, we found an increase in cytosolic aggregates and hypothesized that the phenotype is indirectly related to an excess activation of the mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) pathway, leading to the formation of protein aggregates in the cytosol with increasing levels of oxidative stress.As we found that the expression levels of the two main H2S producing enzymes, cystathionine beta synthase and cystathionine gamma lyase, were lower in WS cells compared to normal, we investigated the effect of administration of H2S as NaHS (50 mu M). NaHS treatment blocked mTOR activity, abrogated protein aggregation and normalized the phenotype of WS cells. Similar results were obtained by treatment with the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin.This is the first report suggesting that hydrogen sulfide administered as NaHS restores proteostasis and cellular morphological phenotype of WS cells and hints to the importance of transsulfuration pathway in WS. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.