Sarcomas are quite rare with only 15,000 new cases per year in the United States. Sarcomas therefore represent about one percent of the 1.5 million new cancer diagnoses in that country each year.

Sarcomas affect people of all ages. Approximately 50% of bone sarcomas and 20% of soft tissue sarcomas are diagnosed in people under the age of 35. Some sarcomas, such as leiomyosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, and gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), are more common in adults than in children. Most high-grade bone sarcomas, including Ewing's sarcoma and osteosarcoma, are much more common in children and young adults.

In addition to being named based on the tissue of origin, sarcomas are also assigned a grade (low, intermediate, or high) based on the presence and frequency of certain cellular and subcellular characteristics associated with malignant biological behavior. Low grade sarcomas are usually treated surgically, although sometimes radiation therapy or chemotherapy are used. Intermediate and high grade sarcomas are more frequently treated with a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy. Since higher grade tumors are more likely to undergo metastasis (invasion and spread to locoregional and distant sites), they are treated more aggressively. The recognition that many sarcomas are sensitive to chemotherapy has dramatically improved the survival of patients. For example, in the era before chemotherapy, long-term survival for patients with localized osteosarcoma was only approximately 20%, but now has risen to 60–70%.

ASPS is an extremely rare cancer. While sarcomas comprise about 1% of all newly diagnosed cancers, and 15% of all childhood cancers, ASPS comprises less than 1% of sarcomas. According to the American Cancer Society, about 9530 new cases of soft tissue sarcoma will be diagnosed in the USA in 2006. This predicts under 100 new cases of ASPS. Such low numbers of occurrence seriously impede the search for a cure by making it hard to gather any meaningful statistics about the disease. As a result, finding the best treatment option often involves making a lot of educated guesses.

Work out of Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) in Utah has demonstrated that ASPS might be driven in part by lactate both being used as a fuel and driving angiogenesis.

Soft-tissue sarcomas are relatively uncommon cancers. They account for less than 1% of all new cancer cases each year. This may be because cells in soft tissue, in contrast to tissues that more commonly give rise to malignancies, are not continuously dividing cells.

In 2006, about 9,500 new cases were diagnosed in the United States. Soft-tissue sarcomas are more commonly found in older patients (>50 years old) although in children and adolescents under age 20, certain histologies are common (rhabdomyosarcoma, synovial sarcoma).

Around 3,300 people were diagnosed with soft tissue sarcoma in the UK 2011.

Uterine sarcoma are rare, out of all malignancies of the uterine body only about 4% will be uterine sarcomas. Generally, the cause of the lesion is not known, however patients with a history of pelvic radiation are at higher risk. Most tumors occur after menopause.

Women who take long-term tamoxifen are at higher risk.

Most soft-tissue sarcomas are not associated with any known risk factors or identifiable cause. There are some exceptions:

- Studies suggest that workers who are exposed to chlorophenols in wood preservatives and phenoxy herbicides may have an increased risk of developing soft-tissue sarcomas. An unusual percentage of patients with a rare blood vessel tumor, angiosarcoma of the liver, have been exposed to vinyl chloride in their work. This substance is used in the manufacture of certain plastics, notably PVC.

- In the early 1900s, when scientists were just discovering the potential uses of radiation to treat disease, little was known about safe dosage levels and precise methods of delivery. At that time, radiation was used to treat a variety of noncancerous medical problems, including enlargement of the tonsils, adenoids, and thymus gland. Later, researchers found that high doses of radiation caused soft-tissue sarcomas in some patients. Because of this risk, radiation treatment for cancer is now planned to ensure that the maximum dosage of radiation is delivered to diseased tissue while surrounding healthy tissue is protected as much as possible.

- Kaposi's sarcoma, a rare cancer of the cells that line blood vessels in the skin and mucus membranes, is caused by Human herpesvirus 8. Kaposi's sarcoma often occurs in patients with AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome). Kaposi's sarcoma, however, has different characteristics than typical soft-tissue sarcomas and is treated differently.

- In a very small fraction of cases, sarcoma may be related to a rare inherited genetic alteration of the p53 gene and is known as Li-Fraumeni syndrome. Certain other inherited diseases are associated with an increased risk of developing soft-tissue sarcomas. For example, people with neurofibromatosis type I (also called von Recklinghausen's disease, associated with alterations in the NF1 gene) are at an increased risk of developing soft-tissue sarcomas known as malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors. Patients with inherited retinoblastoma have alterations in the RB1 gene, a tumor suppressor gene, and are likely to develop soft-tissue sarcomas as they mature into adulthood.

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%.

Undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma is regarded as the most common soft tissue sarcoma of late adult life. It rarely occurs in children. It occurs more often in Caucasians than in those of African or Asian descent and is a male-predominant disease, afflicting two males for every female.

Staging attempts to distinguish patients with localized from those with metastatic disease. Most commonly, metastases occur in the chest, bone and/or bone marrow. Less common sites include the central nervous system and lymph nodes.

Five-year survival for localized disease is 70% to 80% when treated with chemotherapy. Prior to the use of multi-drug chemotherapy, long-term survival was less than 10%. The development of multi-disciplinary therapy with chemotherapy, irradiation, and surgery has increased current long-term survival rates in most clinical centers to greater than 50%. However, some sources state it is 25–30%.

Retrospective research in patients led by Idriss M. Bennani-Baiti (Cancer Epigenetics Society) showed that two chemokine receptors, CXCR4 and CXCR7, can be used as molecular prognosis factors. Patients who express low levels of both chemokine receptors have the highest odds of long-term survival with >90% survival at 5 years post-diagnosis versus <30% survival at 5 years for patients with very high expression levels of both receptors.

Sarcoma botryoides normally is found in children under 8 years of age. Onset of symptoms occurs at age 3 years (38.3 months) on average. Cases of older women with this condition have also been reported.

When the tumor is large and there is presence of necrosis and local recurrence, the prognosis is poor. Presence of metastasis occurs in more than 50% cases and the common places of its occurrence are the bone, lymph node and lungs. Five-year survival rates, which are reported to be between 50-65%, can be misleading because the disease is prone to late metastasis or recurrence. Ten and twenty-year survival rates are 33% and 10%, respectively.

In Europe and North America, KSHV is transmitted through saliva. Thus, kissing is a theoretical risk factor for transmission. Higher rates of transmission among gay and bisexual men have been attributed to "deep kissing" sexual partners with KSHV. Another alternative theory suggests that use of saliva as a sexual lubricant might be a major mode for transmission. Prudent advice is to use commercial lubricants when needed and avoid deep kissing with partners with KSHV infection or whose status is unknown.

KSHV is also transmissible via organ transplantation and blood transfusion. Testing for the virus before these procedures is likely to effectively limit iatrogenic transmission.

Clear-cell sarcoma (formerly known as malignant melanoma of the soft parts) is a rare form of cancer called sarcoma. It is known to occur mainly in the soft tissues and dermis. Rare forms were thought to occur in the gastrointestinal tract before they were discovered to be different and redesignated as GNET.

Recurrence is common.

It has been associated with both EWSR1-ATF1 and EWSR1-CREB1 fusion transcripts.

Clear cell sarcoma of the soft tissues in adults is not related to the pediatric tumor known as clear cell sarcoma of the kidney.

A splenic tumor is a rare form of tumor that may be malignant or benign. Malignant forms include lymphoma and sarcoma.

Lymphoma is the most common malignant splenic tumor.

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.

There are no known risk factors that have been identified specific to the disease. The tumor appears to arise from the primitive cells of childhood, and is considered a childhood cancer.

Research has indicated that there is a chimeric relationship between desmoplastic small-round-cell tumor (DSRCT) and Wilms' tumor and Ewing's sarcoma. Together with neuroblastoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, they form the small cell tumors.

DSRCT is associated with a unique chromosomal translocation t(11;22)(p13:q12) resulting in an EWS/WT1 transcript that is diagnostic of this tumor. This transcript codes for a protein that acts as a transcriptional activator that fails to suppress tumor growth.

The EWS/WT1 translocation product targets ENT4. ENT4 is also known as PMAT.

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.

A synovial sarcoma (also known as: malignant synovioma) is a rare form of cancer which occurs primarily in the extremities of the arms or legs, often in close proximity to joint capsules and tendon sheaths. As one of the soft tissue sarcomas, it is one of the rarest forms of soft tissue cancer.

The name "synovial sarcoma" was coined early in the 20th century, as some researchers thought that the microscopic similarity of some tumors to synovium, and its propensity to arise adjacent to joints, indicated a synovial origin; however, the actual cells from which the tumor develops are unknown and not necessarily synovial.

Primary synovial sarcomas are most common in the soft tissue near the large joints of the arm and leg but have been documented in most human tissues and organs, including the brain, prostate, and heart.

Synovial sarcoma occurs most commonly in the young, representing

about 8% of all soft tissue sarcomas but about 15–20% of cases occur in adolescents and young adults. The peak of incidence is in the third decade of life, with males being affected more often than females (ratio around 1.2:1).

A Clear-cell carcinoma is a carcinoma (i.e. not a sarcoma) showing clear cells.

"A rare type of tumor, usually of the female genital tract, in which the insides of the cells look clear when viewed under a microscope. Also called clear cell adenocarcinoma and mesonephroma."

Examples :

- Clear cell renal cell carcinoma ~ clear cell kidney cancer

- Uterine clear-cell carcinoma ~ clear cell endometrial cancer

- Clear-cell ovarian carcinoma

Surgery, with as wide a margin of removal as possible, has generally been the most effective and preferred way to attack LMS. If surgical margins are narrow or not clear of tumor, however, or in some situations where tumor cells were left behind, chemotherapy or radiation has been shown to give a clear survival benefit. While LMS tends to be resistant to radiation and chemotherapy, each case is different and results can vary widely.

LMS of uterine origin do frequently, but not always respond to hormonal treatments.

Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans (DFSP)

is a very rare tumor. It is a rare neoplasm of the dermis layer of the skin, and is classified as a sarcoma. There is only about one case per million per year. DFSP is a fibrosarcoma, more precisely a cutaneous soft tissue sarcoma. In many respects, the disease behaves as a benign tumor, but in 2–5% of cases it can metastasize, so it should be considered to have malignant potential. It occurs most often in adults in their thirties; it has been described congenitally, in children, and the elderly. It accounts for approximately 2–6% of soft tissue sarcoma cancers.

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), also called HHV-8 is present in almost 100% of Kaposi sarcoma lesions, whether HIV-related, classic, endemic, or iatrogenic.

Sarcomatoid carcinoma is a relatively uncommon form of cancer whose malignant cells have histological, cytological, or molecular properties of both epithelial tumors ("carcinoma") and mesenchymal tumors ("sarcoma").

The disease used to be uniformly fatal, with a 5-year survival rate between 10 and 35%. As a result, treatment was radical surgery. New multidrug chemotherapy regimens with or without radiation therapy are now used in combination with less radical surgery with good results, although outcome data are not yet available.