Opportunities and Challenges in Soft Tissue Sarcoma Risk Stratification in the Era of Personalised Medicine.

Abstract

Opinion statement: Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are a rare and heterogeneous group of cancers. Treatment options have changed little in the past thirty years, and the role of neoadjuvant chemotherapy is controversial. Accurate risk stratification is crucial in STS in order to facilitate clinical discussions around peri-operative treatment. Current risk stratification tools used in clinic, such as Sarculator, use clinicopathological characteristics and may be specific to anatomical site or to histology. More recently, risk stratification tools have been developed using molecular or immunological data. Combining Sarculator with other risk stratification tools may identify novel patient groups with differential clinical outcomes. There are several considerations when translating risk stratification tools into widespread clinical use, including establishing clinical utility, health economic value, being applicable to existing clinical pathways, having strong real-world performance, and being supported by investment into infrastructure. Future work may include incorporation of novel modalities and data integration techniques.