The optimal sequencing of radiotherapy (RT) with surgery in soft-tissue sarcomas (STS) remains undefined. We assessed the impact of RT sequencing on overall survival (OS), cause-specific survival (CSS), local failure, and distant failure. A retrospective analysis was conducted using the National Oncology Database, a proprietary database of aggregated tumour registries owned by Impac(r) Medical Systems (Sunnyvale, CA). Eligible sites were soft tissues of the head/neck, thorax, abdomen, pelvis, extremities, trunk, and peritoneum. Only patients with known stage and grade were included. Prognostic factors were identified with multivariate analysis (MVA) using the Cox proportional hazards model. Survival was calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method, and compared for statistical significance (p< 0.05) using the log-rank test.Purpose
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