Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy in Treating Patients Undergoing Surgery for Stage IB, Stage II, or Stage III Soft Tissue Sarcoma
Condition: Sarcoma
MeSH terms: Sarcoma
Intervention: gene expression analysis; polymerase chain reaction; western blotting; neoadjuvant therapy; therapeutic conventional surgery; intensity-modulated radiation therapy
Phase: Phase 2
Study type: Interventional
Primary purpose: Treatment
Intervention model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Enrollment: 1.0
Sex: All
Minimum age: 18 Years
Healthy volunteers: No
Keywords: recurrent adult soft tissue sarcoma; stage I adult soft tissue sarcoma; stage II adult soft tissue sarcoma; stage III adult soft tissue sarcoma; adult alveolar soft-part sarcoma; adult epithelioid sarcoma; adult extraskeletal chondrosarcoma; adult extraskeletal osteosarcoma; adult fibrosarcoma; adult malignant fibrous histiocytoma; adult malignant hemangiopericytoma; adult malignant mesenchymoma; adult neurofibrosarcoma; adult rhabdomyosarcoma; dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans

Summary:

      RATIONALE: Specialized radiation therapy that delivers a high dose of radiation directly to
      the tumor may kill more tumor cells and cause less damage to normal tissue. Giving radiation
      therapy before surgery may make the tumor smaller and reduce the amount of normal tissue that
      needs to be removed.

      PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying the side effects of intensity-modulated radiation
      therapy and to see how well it works in treating patients undergoing surgery for stage IB,
      stage II, or stage III soft tissue sarcoma.
    

Eligibility criteria:

        DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

          -  Histologically confirmed soft tissue sarcoma (STS) for which neoadjuvant or adjuvant
             radiotherapy is considered standard care

               -  Stage IB-III disease

               -  Primary or locally recurrent disease

          -  The following chemotherapy-sensitive STS histologies are excluded:

               -  Primitive neuroectodermal tumor

               -  Desmoplastic small round cell tumor

               -  Synovial sarcoma

               -  Myxoid round cell liposarcoma

               -  Angiosarcoma

          -  No sarcomas for which surgical staging and adjuvant radiotherapy are considered
             standard care (e.g., uterine sarcomas, including leiomyosarcoma, malignant mixed
             Müllerian tumors, and endometrial stromal sarcoma)

          -  No retroperitoneal STS

        PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

          -  ECOG performance status 0-2

          -  Able to complete the self-assessment questionnaires (may use translator service)

          -  Willing and able to undergo pre-treatment core needle biopsies

          -  Negative pregnancy test

          -  No known HIV positivity

        PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

          -  Prior adjuvant chemotherapy for STS allowed provided patient has locally recurrent
             disease

               -  At least 1 year since prior adjuvant chemotherapy

          -  No prior radiotherapy to the site of present STS

          -  No other concurrent cytotoxic chemotherapy, targeted therapy, or investigational
             agents