Soft Tissue Sarcoma - Diagnosis & Treatment

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How is soft tissue sarcoma diagnosed?

Depending on your symptoms, your doctor may only diagnose soft tissue sarcoma when the tumour has grown noticeable. Your doctor may:

Ask for your family medical history.
Conduct a physical examination.
Send you for imaging tests such as ultrasound scans or whole body PET-CT scans.
Perform a biopsy to remove a tissue sample of your tumour for further analysis.

How is soft tissue sarcoma treated?

Depending on the site and size of the tumour, your doctor may recommend these treatments:

Surgery to remove the tumour along with some surrounding healthy cells to ensure complete removal of the cancer cells. In a very small number of cases, there may be no better option but to amputate the affected body part (e.g. leg).
Radiotherapy, where high-energy radiation is used to kill the cancer cells. Radiotherapy may be used to shrink the tumour before surgery or destroy possible remaining cancer cells after surgery.
Chemotherapy and targeted drug treatment to kill the cancer cells.

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