Characteristics of hand and foot soft tissue sarcomas: experience of one institution

Introduction. Soft tissue sarcomas of the distal extremities constitute an extremely rare heterogeneous group of malignant mesenchymal tissue tumors, and very few publications are available on this subject. A distinctive feature of hand and foot sarcomas is their small size. Given the rarity of the pathology, survival data vary in the literature.

Aim. To study the clinical and morphological characteristics of soft tissue sarcomas of the hand and foot.

Materials and methods. The clinical observations of 50 patients with soft tissue sarcomas of the hand and foot were retrospectively analyzed. All of the patients were examined and treated at the Moscow Oncology Hospital No. 62 in 2004–2022.

Results. A total of 23 males and 27 females were included in the study, with a mean age of 57 years. Of the 50 sarcoma cases, 12 were localized to the hand and 38 were localized to the foot. Synovial and epithelioid sarcomas were found to be the most frequent histologic subtypes localized to the foot and hand, respectively. Th e most frequent treatment options were surgical and combined treatment (surgery + chemotherapy).

Discussion. The main characteristics of patients do not differ from those reported in foreign studies; however, the sizes of hand and foot tumors were larger in the present study. This group of patients requires closer attention due to the functional significance of areas where such tumors are found, as well as a high prevalence of malignancy according to the observations.

Conclusion. Taking into account the size of distally localized soft tissue sarcomas and the specifics of surgical interventions in these areas, it is recommended to classify them as a separate group to distinguish them from sarcomas arising in other areas of the body. A further study is needed to assess the correlation between treatment volume and recurrence rate in these patients, as well as overall survival.

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