Radiotherapy can be a valuable treatment in addition to surgery for soft tissue sarcomas, although there can be late effects from the radiation. H. Thomas Temple, MD, professor of orthopedics and pathology at the University of Miami School of Medicine, studied patient responses to radiation.
Anecdotal evidence supports using hyperbaric oxygen before and/or after surgery. Dr. Temple found that late effects of radiation were directly related to the late dose and mode of radiation delivery. He recommended limiting radiotherapy treatment time and maximizing the radiation dose where it is most needed.
Ginger Holt, MD, director of musculoskeletal oncology at Vanderbilt Orthopaedic Institute in Nashville, Tenn., found several risk factors for fracture in irradiated bone, including female sex, patients older than 55, periosteal stripping during resection, neoadjuvant chemotherapy, tumors in the anterior thigh compartment, smoking and osteoporosis. The use of glucocoricoids and radiation to the entire bone are also risk factors.
Read the report on orthopedic oncology.
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