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General treatment regimens have not changed much in the past 30 years, in part due to the lack of randomized clinical trials. Surgery is the treatment of choice if the tumor is determined to be resectable. Curettage is a commonly used technique. The situation is complicated in a patient with a pathological fracture. It may be best to immobilize the affected limb and wait for the fracture to heal before performing surgery.
Patients with tumors that are not amenable to surgery are treated with radiation therapy. However caution is employed since a majority of recurrent tumors with transformations to the malignant sarcoma phenotype have been in patients receiving radiotherapy for their primary benign lesion. Pharmacotherapy for GCTOB, includes bisphosphonates such as Zoledronate, which are thought to induce apoptosis in the MNGC fraction, preventing tumor-induced osteolysis. Indeed, "in vitro" studies have shown zolidronate to be effective in killing osteoclast-like cells. More recently, humanized monoclonal antibodies such as Denosumab targeting the RANK ligand have been employed in treatment of GCTOB in a phase II study. This is based on the notion that increased expression of RANK-ligands by stromal cells plays a role in tumor pathogenesis.
Treatment consists of surgical excision (the extent of which ranges from tumor excision to limb amputation, depending on the tumor) and in almost all cases radiation. Radiation eliminates the need for limb amputation and there is level I evidence to show that it leads to equivalent rates of survival (Rosenberg et al. NCI Canada). Radiation may be delivered either pre-op or post-op depending on surgeon and multidisciplinary tumor board's recommendations. Radiation can be omitted for low grade, Stage I excised tumors with >1 cm margin (NCCN). Chemotherapy remains controversial in MFH.
The usual site of metastatic disease is the lungs, and metastases should be resected if possible. Unresectable or inoperable lung metastasis may be treated with stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) with excellent local control. However, neither surgery nor SBRT will prevent emergence of additional metastasis elsewhere in the lung. Therefore, role of chemotherapy needs to be further explored to address systemic metastasis.
Treatment is usually multimodal, involving surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy:
- Surgery, to remove the tumor and a safety margin of healthy tissue. This is the mainstay of synovial sarcoma treatment and is curative in approximately 20–70% of patients, depending on the particular study being quoted.
- Conventional chemotherapy, (for example, doxorubicin hydrochloride and ifosfamide), to reduce the number of remaining microscopic metastases. The benefit of chemotherapy in synovial sarcoma to overall survival remains unclear, although a recent study has shown that survival of patients with advanced, poorly differentiated disease marginally improves with doxorubicin/ifosfamide treatment.
- Radiotherapy to reduce the chance of local recurrence. The benefit of radiotherapy in this disease is less clear than for chemotherapy.
Most histiocytomas will regress within two or three months. Surgical removal may be necessary if the tumor does not regress or if it is growing rapidly to a large size. Histiocytomas should never be treated with an intralesional injection of a corticosteroid, as remission relies on recognition of the tumour by the body's immune system which is suppressed by steroids.
One such development is in the delivery of doxorubicin. While it is an effective inducer of apoptosis, doxorubicin is quickly filtered out of the body. By loading a PEG-liposome with doxorubicin the circulation time and localization to tumors greatly increases. Cancerous tumors characteristically have extensive angiogenesis and leaky vasculatures, which causes the PEG-liposomes to naturally accumulate in the tumor. This also allows for patients to receive lower and fewer doses of the drug and experience fewer side effects. This is also being attempted with nanoparticles but has not been tested on FDCS. In 2008 COP plus (PEG)-liposomal doxorubicin went into a clinical trial for an FDCS patient to replace the CHOP regimen, and after 5 years the patient remains in CR.
Almost all patients require multidrug chemotherapy (often including ifosfamide and etoposide), as well as local disease control with surgery and/or radiation. An aggressive approach is necessary because almost all patients with apparently localized disease at the time of diagnosis actually have asymptomatic metastatic disease.
Treatment often consists of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, which may include vincristine, doxorubicin, and cyclophosphamide with ifosfamide and etoposide. After about three months of chemotherapy, the remaining tumor is surgically resected, irradiated, or both. The surgical resection may involve limb salvage or amputation. Complete excision at the time of biopsy may be performed if malignancy is confirmed at the time it is examined.
Treatment lengths vary depending on location and stage of the disease at diagnosis. Radical chemotherapy may be as short as six treatments at 3-week cycles, but most patients undergo chemotherapy for 6–12 months and radiation therapy for 5–8 weeks.
Radiotherapy has been used for localized disease. The tumor has a unique property of being highly sensitive to radiation, sometimes acknowledged by the phrase "melting like snow", but the main drawback is that it recurs dramatically after some time. Antisense oligodeoxynucleotides have been proposed as possible treatment by down-regulating the expression of the oncogenic fusion protein associated with the development of Ewing's sarcoma resulting from the EWS-ETS gene translocation. In addition, the synthetic retinoid derivative fenretinide (4-hydroxy(phenyl)retinamide) has been reported to induce high levels of cell death in Ewing's sarcoma cell lines "in vitro" and to delay growth of xenografts in "in vivo" mouse models.
Treatment depends upon the site and the extent of the disease. Clear cell sarcoma is usually treated with surgery in the first place in order to remove the tumor. The surgical procedure is then followed by radiation and sometimes chemotherapy. Few cases of clear cell sarcoma respond to chemotherapy. Several types of targeted therapy that may be of benefit to clear cell sarcoma patients are currently under investigation.
Treatment is primarily surgical, with chemotherapy and radiation therapy sometimes used.
The NCCN guideline recommends CCPDMA or Mohs surgery for the best cure rate of DFSP. Mohs surgery can be extremely effective. It will remove the tumor and all related pathological cells without a wide-area excision that may overlook sarcoma cells that have penetrated muscle tissue.
The standard of care for patients with DFSP is surgery. Usually, complete surgical resection with margins of 2 to 4 cm (recommended) is performed. The addition of adjuvant radiotherapy (irradiation) improves local control in patients with close or positive margins during the surgery. A special surgical technique, the "Mohs micrographic surgery" (MMS), can be employed in patients with DFSP. MMS is technically possible if the DFSP is in an anatomically confined area. A high probability of cure of DFSP can be attained with MMS as long as the final margins are negative. Patients who have a recurrent DFSP can have further surgery, but the probability of adverse effects of surgery and/or metastasis is increased in these patients. The Mohs surgery is highly successful.
Imatinib is approved for treatment. As is true for all medicinal drugs that have a name that ends in "ib," imatinib is a small molecular pathway inhibitor; imatinib inhibits tyrosine kinase. It may be able to induce tumor regression in patients with recurrent DFSP, unresectable DFSP or metastatic DFSP. There is clinical evidence that imatinib, which inhibits PDGF-receptors, may be effective for tumors positive for the t(17;22) translocation.
The Stehlin Foundation currently offers DSRCT patients the opportunity to send samples of their tumors free of charge for testing. Research scientists are growing the samples on nude mice and testing various chemical agents to find which are most effective against the individual's tumor.
Patients with advanced DSRCT may qualify to participate in clinical trials that are researching new drugs to treat the disease.
While chemotherapy, radiation therapy, curettage and liquid nitrogen have been effective in some cases of ameloblastoma, surgical resection or enucleation remains the most definitive treatment for this condition. In a detailed study of 345 patients, chemotherapy and radiation therapy seemed to be contraindicated for the treatment of ameloblastomas. Thus, surgery is the most common treatment of this tumor. Because of the invasive nature of the growth, excision of normal tissue near the tumor margin is often required. Some have likened the disease to basal cell carcinoma (a skin cancer) in its tendency to spread to adjacent bony and sometimes soft tissues without metastasizing. While rarely not a cancer that actually invades adjacent tissues, ameloblastoma is suspected to spread to adjacent areas of the jaw bone via marrow space. Thus, wide surgical margins that are clear of disease are required for a good prognosis. This is very much like surgical treatment of cancer. Often, treatment requires excision of entire portions of the jaw.
Radiation is ineffective in many cases of ameloblastoma. There have also been reports of sarcoma being induced as the result of using radiation to treat ameloblastoma. Chemotherapy is also often ineffective. However, there is some controversy regarding this and some indication that some ameloblastomas might be more responsive to radiation that previously thought.
Newer cases are also starting to be treated by taxotere and gemcitabine. Taxotere is similar to Oncovin used in CHOP; it irreversibly binds beta tubulin halting formation of microtubules. Taxotere has an added benefit though; it also phosphorylates bcl-2 to halt the anti-apoptotic pathway. The dual effect of taxotere on integral cancer pathways makes it a more potent drug than Oncovin. Gemcitabene is a nucleoside analog and when incorporated into DNA during replication leads to apoptosis; the fluorine on the 2’ carbon atom stops other nucleosides from attaching. The most important part of this combination therapy, however, is the synergism between the drugs. While researchers are not entirely sure of the mechanism, there is evidence of synergistic effects of taxotere and gemcitabine when used in combination. This allows for decreased dosages of each single agent with an increased apoptotic response.
Chondroblastoma has not been known to spontaneously heal and the standard treatment is surgical curettage of the lesion with bone grafting. To prevent recurrence or complications it is important to excise the entire tumor following strict oncologic criteria. However, in skeletally immature patients intraoperative fluoroscopy may be helpful to avoid destruction of the epiphyseal plate. In patients who are near the end of skeletal growth, complete curettage of the growth plate is an option. In addition to curettage, electric or chemical cauterization (via phenol) can be used as well as cryotherapy and wide or marginal resection. Depending on the size of the subsequent defect, autograft or allograft bone grafts are the preferred filling materials. Other options include substituting polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) or fat implantation in place of the bone graft. The work of Ramappa "et al" suggests that packing with PMMA may be a more optimal choice because the heat of polymerization of the cement is thought to kill any remaining lesion.
Both radiotherapy and chemotherapy are not commonly used. Radiotherapy has been implemented in chondroblastoma cases that are at increased risk of being more aggressive and are suspected of malignant transformation. Furthermore, radiofrequency ablation has been used, but is typically most successful for small chondroblastoma lesions (approximately 1.5 cm). Treatment with radiofrequency ablation is highly dependent on size and location due to the increased risk of larger, weight-bearing lesions being at an increased risk for articular collapse and recurrence.
Overall, the success and method of treatment is highly dependent upon the location and size of the chondroblastoma.
Based on a survey of >800, surgical removal of the entire involved kidney plus the peri-renal fat appeared curative for the majority of all types of mesoblastic nephroma; the patient overall survival rate was 94%. Of the 4% of non-survivors, half were due to surgical or chemotherapeutic treatments. Another 4% of these patients suffered relapses, primarily in the local area of surgery rare cases of relapse due to lung or bone metastasis.. About 60% of these recurrent cases had a complete remission following further treatment. Recurrent disease was treated with a second surgery, radiation, and/or chemotherapy that often vincristine and actinomycin treatment. Removal of the entire afflicted kidney plus the peri-renal fat appears critical to avoiding local recurrences. In general, patients who were older than 3 months of age at diagnosis or had the cellular form of the disease, stage III disease, or involvement of renal lymph nodes had a higher recurrence rate. Among patients with these risk factors, only those with lymph node involvement are recommended for further therapy.
It has been suggested that mesoblastic nephroma patients with lymph node involvement or recurrent disease might benefit by adding the ALK inhibitor, crizotinib, or a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, either larotrectinib or entrectinib, to surgical, radiation, and/or chemotherapy treatment regimens. These drugs inhibit NTRK3's tyrosine kinase activity. Crizotinib has proven useful in treating certain cases of acute lymphoblastic leukemia that are associated with the "ETV6-NTRK3" fusion gene while larotrectinib and entrectinib have been useful in treating various cancers (e.g. a metastatic sarcoma, papillary thyroid cancer, non-small-cell lung carcinoma, gastrointestinal stromal tumor, mammary analog secretory carcinoma, and colorectal cancer) that are driven by mutated, overly active tyrosine kinases. Relevant to this issue, a 16-month-old girl with infantile fibrosarcoma harboring the "ETV6–NTRK3" fusion gene was successfully trated with larotrectinib. The success of these drugs, howwever, will likely depend on the relative malignancy-promoting roles of ETV6-NTRK3 protein's tyrosine kinase activity, the lose of ETV6-related transcription activity accompanying formation of ETV6-NTRK3 protein, and the various trisomy chromosomes that populate mesoblastic nephroma.
The treatment for CGCG is thorough curettage. A referral is made to an oral surgeon. Recurrence ranges from 15%–20%. In aggressive tumors, three alternatives to surgery are undergoing investigation:
- corticosteroids;
- calcitonin (salmon calcitonin);
- interferon α-2a.
These therapeutic approaches provide positive possible alternatives for large lesions. The long term prognosis of giant-cell granulomas is good and metastases do not develop.
2004 research showed that CCSK patients exhibit an improved relapse-free survival from a longer course of therapy when using vincristine, doxorubicin, and dactinomycin, but their long-term survival is unchanged compared with patients receiving 6 months of therapy.
Current treatment options include:
- Surgical debulking
- High-dose Corticosteroid therapy
- Cyclosporin
- Interferon-α
- Chemotherapy
- Vemurafenib. It would appear that approximately half these patients harbor point mutations of the BRAF gene at codon 600 substituting the amino acid glutamine for valine. Vemurafenib, an oral FDA approved targeted agent to the BRAF protein for melanoma, shows dramatic activity in patients Erdheim–Chester disease whose tumor contains the same mutation. In 2017 the US FDA approved vemurafenib for this indication.
- Radiation therapy
All current treatments have had varying degrees of success.
The vinca alkaloids and anthracyclines have been used most commonly in ECD treatment.
Epithelioid sarcoma (especially advanced stage, recurrent, or metastasized disease) has been shown to be resistant to traditional cancer therapies, necessitating further exploration of novel treatment methods and techniques. Because of the relatively poor response of epithelioid sarcoma to traditional cancer treatments (surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation), new treatment strategies are being looked to.
Depending on the pet's unique condition, there are several treatment options, including surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Treating the pain adequately is also of crucial importance to improve the pet's quality of life, especially if amputation is not performed.
Treatment for neurofibrosarcoma is similar to that of other cancers.
Surgery is an option; the removal of the tumor along with surrounding tissue may be vital for the patient’s survival. For discrete, localized tumors, surgery is often followed by radiation therapy of the excised area to reduce the chance of recurrence.
For patients suffering from neurofibrosarcomas in an extremity, if the tumor is vascularized (has its own blood supply) and has many nerves going through it and/or around it, amputation of the extremity may be necessary. Some surgeons argue that amputation should be the procedure of choice when possible, due to the increased chance of a better quality of life. Otherwise, surgeons may opt for a limb-saving treatment, by removing less of the surrounding tissue or part of the bone, which is replaced by a metal rod or grafts.
Radiation will also be used in conjunction with surgery, especially if the limb was not amputated. Radiation is rarely used as a sole treatment.
In some instances, the oncologist may choose chemotherapy drugs when treating a patient with neurofibrosarcoma, usually in conjunction with surgery. Patients taking chemotherapy must be prepared for the side effects that come with any other chemotherapy treatment, such as; hair loss, lethargy, weakness, etc.
The prognosis for DSRCT remains poor. Prognosis depends upon the stage of the cancer. Because the disease can be misdiagnosed or remain undetected, tumors frequently grow large within the abdomen and metastasize or seed to other parts of the body.
There is no known organ or area of origin. DSRCT can metastasize through lymph nodes or the blood stream. Sites of metastasis include the spleen, diaphragm, liver, large and small intestine, lungs, central nervous system, bones, uterus, bladder, genitals, abdominal cavity, and the brain.
A multi-modality approach of high-dose chemotherapy, aggressive surgical resection, radiation, and stem cell rescue improves survival for some patients. Reports have indicated that patients will initially respond to first line chemotherapy and treatment but that relapse is common.
Some patients in remission or with inoperable tumor seem to benefit from long term low dose chemotherapy, turning DSRCT into a chronic disease.
In women, chemotherapy may damage the ovaries and cause infertility. To avail future pregnancies, the woman may preserve oocytes or ovarian tissue by oocyte cryopreservation or ovarian tissue cryopreservation prior to starting chemotherapy. However, the latter may reseed the cancer upon reinsertion of the ovarian tissue. If it is performed, the ovarian tissue should be examined for traces of malignancy at both the pathological and molecular levels prior to the grafting of the cryopreserved tissue.
Prognosis depends on the primary tumor grade (appearance under the microscope as judged by a pathologist), size, resectability (whether it can be completely removed surgically), and presence of metastases. The five-year survival is 80%.
Surgery is important in the treatment of most sarcomas. Limb sparing surgery, as opposed to amputation, can now be used to save the limbs of patients in at least 90% of extremity tumor cases. Additional treatments, including chemotherapy and radiation therapy, may be administered before and/or after surgery. Chemotherapy significantly improves the prognosis for many sarcoma patients, especially those with bone sarcomas. Treatment can be a long and arduous process, lasting about a year for many patients.
- Liposarcoma treatment consists of surgical resection, with chemotherapy not being used outside of the investigative setting. Adjuvant radiotherapy may also be used after surgical excision for liposarcoma.
- Rhabdomyosarcoma is treated with surgery, radiotherapy, and/or chemotherapy. The majority of rhabdomyosarcoma patients have a 50–85% survival rate.
- Osteosarcoma is treated with surgical resection of as much of the cancer as possible, often along with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Radiotherapy is a second alternative although not as successful.
The first route of treatment in Osteoblastoma is via medical means. Although necessary, radiation therapy (or chemotherapy) is controversial in the treatment of osteoblastoma. Cases of postirradiation sarcoma have been reported after use of these modalities. However, it is possible that the original histologic diagnosis was incorrect and the initial lesion was an osteosarcoma, since histologic differentiation of these two entities can be very difficult.
The alternative means of treatment consists of surgical therapy. The treatment goal is complete surgical excision of the lesion. The type of excision depends on the location of the tumor.
- For stage 1 and 2 lesions, the recommended treatment is extensive intralesional excision, using a high-speed burr. Extensive intralesional resections ideally consist of removal of gross and microscopic tumor and a margin of normal tissue.
- For stage 3 lesions, wide resection is recommended because of the need to remove all tumor-bearing tissue. Wide excision is defined here as the excision of tumor and a circumferential cuff of normal tissue around the entity. This type of complete excision is usually curative for osteoblastoma.
In most patients, radiographic findings are not diagnostic of osteoblastoma; therefore, further imaging is warranted. CT examination performed with the intravenous administration of contrast agent poses a risk of an allergic reaction to contrast material.
The lengthy duration of an MRI examination and a history of claustrophobia in some patients are limiting the use of MRI. Although osteoblastoma demonstrates increased radiotracer accumulation, its appearance is nonspecific, and differentiating these lesions from those due to other causes involving increased radiotracer accumulation in the bone is difficult. Therefore, bone scans are useful only in conjunction with other radiologic studies and are not best used alone.
A complete radical, surgical, "en bloc" resection of the cancer, is the treatment of choice in osteosarcoma. Although about 90% of patients are able to have limb-salvage surgery, complications, particularly infection, prosthetic loosening and non-union, or local tumor recurrence may cause the need for further surgery or amputation.
Mifamurtide is used after a patient has had surgery to remove the tumor and together with chemotherapy to kill remaining cancer cells to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence. Also, the option to have rotationplasty after the tumor is taken out exists.
Patients with osteosarcoma are best managed by a medical oncologist and an orthopedic oncologist experienced in managing sarcomas. Current standard treatment is to use neoadjuvant chemotherapy (chemotherapy given before surgery) followed by surgical resection. The percentage of tumor cell necrosis (cell death) seen in the tumor after surgery gives an idea of the prognosis and also lets the oncologist know if the chemotherapy regimen should be altered after surgery.
Standard therapy is a combination of limb-salvage orthopedic surgery when possible (or amputation in some cases) and a combination of high-dose methotrexate with leucovorin rescue, intra-arterial cisplatin, adriamycin, ifosfamide with mesna, BCD (bleomycin, cyclophosphamide, dactinomycin), etoposide, and muramyl tripeptide. Rotationplasty may be used. Ifosfamide can be used as an adjuvant treatment if the necrosis rate is low.
Despite the success of chemotherapy for osteosarcoma, it has one of the lowest survival rates for pediatric cancer. The best reported 10-year survival rate is 92%; the protocol used is an aggressive intra-arterial regimen that individualizes therapy based on arteriographic response. Three-year event-free survival ranges from 50% to 75%, and five-year survival ranges from 60% to 85+% in some studies. Overall, 65–70% patients treated five years ago will be alive today. These survival rates are overall averages and vary greatly depending on the individual necrosis rate.
Filgrastim or pegfilgrastim help with white blood cell counts and neutrophil counts. Blood transfusions and epoetin alfa help with anemia. Computational analysis on a panel of Osteosarcoma cell lines identified new shared and specific therapeutic targets (proteomic and genetic) in Osteosarcoma, while phenotypes showed an increased role of tumor microenvironments.