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Soft tissue sarcomas are malignant (cancerous) tumors that can develop from fat, muscle, nerve, fibrous tissues surrounding joints, blood vessels, or deep skin tissues. They can develop in any part of the body. Approximately 60% of them develop in the arms or legs, and most of the rest develop in either the chest or abdomen or the head and neck area.
When soft tissue sarcoma tumors develop in the arms or legs, patients normally notice a lump that has grown over a period of weeks or months. Soft tissue sarcomas have been known to be painful in some cases, but generally they do not hurt. Sarcomas that grow in the retroperitoneum (the back wall inside the abdomen) do not normally have specific symptoms.
A biopsy is usually the first test your doctor will perform if there is concern about a sarcoma. The biopsy will determine what type of soft tissue sarcoma it is, as well as the grade, which indicates how aggressive the tumor may be. Additional tests may be performed to determine if the sarcoma has spread to other tissues.
Depending on the site and stage of a sarcoma, surgery will likely be used to remove the cancer and some of the adjacent, non-diseased tissue. When the tumor is in the abdomen, surgery is more difficult because the tumor may be next to vital organs that cannot be surgically removed. External beam radiation therapy is often used to treat sarcomas in the abdomen.
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