Radiotherapy for retroperitoneal sarcomas

The management of retroperitoneal sarcoma can be very challenging, and the quality of initial treatment strategy appears to be a crucial prognostic factor. En bloc surgery is currently the standard of care for these rare tumours and perioperative treatments such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy have not been validated yet. However, local-regional relapse constitutes the most common disease course. While adjuvant radiotherapy is less and less common due to gastrointestinal toxicities, preoperative radiation therapy offers numerous advantages and is being evaluated as part of a national multicentre phase II study (TOMOREP trial) and is the subject of a European randomized phase III study (STRASS trial). The objective of this article is to present data on preoperative irradiation in terms of dose, volumes and optimal radiotherapy techniques for the treatment of this rare disease.