S-PHASE FRACTION OF 155 SOFT-TISSUE SARCOMAS - CORRELATION WITH CLINICAL OUTCOME

BACKGROUND. Traditionally, grade is considered the most important prog nostic factor for soft tissue sarcomas (STS). However, because of the alleged difficulties in reproducibility of grading, new, objectively d etermined prognostic factors would be of value. The aim of our study w as to establish if S-phase fraction (SPF) measured with now cytometry was of prognostic significance for STS. METHODS. In this study, we inc luded all 193 adult STS patients with superficial trunk or limb tumors who were treated by the Helsinki University Central Hospital (HUCH) S TS group between January 1987 and May 1993. One hundred and seventy-tw o formalin fixed paraffin embedded tumor samples were available. SPF m easurement was successful in 155 cases. RESULTS. Eighty-six cases were diploid. Ploidy was found to have no effect on overall survival. The median SPF was 6.8% (diploid tumors, 4% and nondiploid tumors, 12.9%). A high SPF predicted a shorter survival in patients with diploid tumo rs (P = 0.03). The prognostic value was even stronger when we studied disease specific survival and excluded from analysis samples that cont ained less than 50% tumor cells (P = 0.011). However, no prognostic va lue could be detected in nondiploid tumors or in the material as a who le. CONCLUSIONS. Our results suggest high SPF is an adverse prognostic factor for survival of patients with diploid STS. However, further st udies are needed to confirm these results. (C) 1996 American Cancer So ciety.