Connective-Tissue Cancer

Patients suffering from sarcoma cancers of bone, muscle, cartilage and tendons must have a thorough diagnostic and evaluation workup before receiving any treatment, to develop suitable treatment recommendations. These cancers are generally best treated with aggressive surgical resection. However, sarcomas of the torso are often difficult to remove in their entirety, and complete resection of limb sarcomas may be impossible without amputation. In these situations, 5 to 6 weeks of high-dose radiation treatment may be given before or after a “wide excision” or “limb-sparing” procedure to achieve good local control. Given the tendency of these cancers to metastasize, chemotherapy is often also recommended.

Conventional irradiation, however, may be dose-limited by the sensitivity of adjacent blood vessels and bones. When long segments of bone or blood vessels are at risk, Tomotherapy may be able to limit the dose to these sensitive structures, while treating sarcomas to higher and more-effective doses.