A histological positive margin after surgery is correlated with high local re-recurrence rate in patients with recurrent myxofibrosarcoma.

Objective: Myxofibrosarcoma has high frequency of local recurrence after surgery. To determine an optimal treatment for recurrent tumors, clinical features of recurrent cases should be characterized.

Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of 30 patients with recurrent myxofibrosarcoma who underwent surgery between 1999 and 2008.

Results: A negative margin after surgery was achieved in only 12 patients (40.0%). The 5-year re-recurrence free-survival rate was 31.7%. The 5-year re-recurrence free survival for those with positive histological margin and those with negative margin were 9.8% and 62.3%, respectively, which indicated that a positive margin was the significant predictor of poor prognosis (P = 0.006). In 21 patients with recurrent myxofibrosarcoma in the extremities, 10 patients (47.6%) ultimately underwent amputation in the follow-up period and the 5-year amputation-free survival rate was 62.5%. The 5-year metastasis-free survival rates and the 5-year overall survival rates were 84.8% and 83.6%, respectively.

Conclusions: In this study, the majority of recurrent cases could not achieve negative margins; notably, a positive margin is a significant poor prognostic indicator of local re-recurrence in patients with recurrent myxofibrosarcoma. To control local recurrence of myxofibrosarcoma was extremely difficult and amputation is often needed in the extremity cases.