Soft Tissue Sarcoma

If you or your loved one has been diagnosed with soft tissue sarcoma, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center is ready to help. Our team of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who treat soft tissue sarcoma are dedicated to providing the highest quality of care for men and women with this disease. There are more than 50 different types of soft tissue sarcomas and sarcoma-like growths. (Sarcomas that originate in the bone are known as osteosarcomas, and more information can be found in our Bone Cancer section. Children can also develop sarcomas, information about which can be found on our Pediatric Sarcoma pages.)

Newly Diagnosed
When it comes to soft tissue sarcoma, where you're treated makes all the difference. Our uniquely experienced team will help you to achieve the best possible outcome.
Our Approach & Expertise
To achieve the best outcome possible, treatment for soft tissue sarcoma requires interdisciplinary care tailored to the individual patient and tumor. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's team of experts in soft tissue sarcoma has extensive experience treating these tumors.
Our Team of Experts
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's Soft Tissue Sarcoma Disease Management Team includes specialists in epidemiology, surgery, medical oncology, radiation oncology, diagnostic radiology, pathology, biostatistics, immunology, and psychiatry. Our team has treated more than 8,000 soft tissue sarcoma patients.
Overview
Soft tissue sarcomas arise in such tissues as fat, muscles, nerves, tendons, and blood and lymph vessels -- the soft tissues that connect, support, and surround other parts of the body.
Risk Factors
Doctors recognize some familial syndromes that can predispose people to sarcoma, including neurofibromatosis, Gardner's syndrome, Li-Fraumeni syndrome, and retinoblastoma.
Symptoms
Because they occur in soft (usually elastic) tissue that is easily pushed out of the way by the growing tumor, soft tissue sarcomas often do not cause early symptoms, and there is not yet a routine screening test available to detect such tumors before symptoms appear.
Diagnosis
There are more than 50 subtypes of soft tissue sarcoma, many of which have unique genetic "fingerprints." Memorial Sloan-Kettering doctors are expert in characterizing sarcomas molecularly and genetically, making accurate diagnoses more common.
Staging
Once all of the necessary diagnostic tests have been completed, doctors will use this information to "stage" or determine how aggressive the tumor is and how far it has spread. This information will then be used to design the appropriate treatment strategy.
Treatment
While surgery continues to be the primary form of treatment for this disease, pathologists now are better able to classify which tumors will be more sensitive to chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
Our Clinical Trials
This section offers a continually updated listing of Memorial Sloan-Kettering's current clinical trials for soft tissue sarcomas.
FAQs
Here you will find frequently asked questions about sarcoma, answered by Dr. Murray F. Brennan, former Chairman, Department of Surgery, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Survivorship & Support
In this section, you will find information about Memorial Sloan-Kettering's services for sarcoma survivors and strategies that have helped other sarcoma survivors and their families cope with an illness that has, in many cases, seriously disrupted their lives.
A Patient's Story
Meet Dave and learn about his successful battle with soft tissue sarcoma.