We have read with great interest the article by Luo et al. concerning the surgical outcomes for primary mediastinal sarcomas [1].
Sarcomas of the mediastinum and great vessels remain a rare subgroup of soft tissue sarcomas and prognosis remains poor with patients often presenting with advanced disease. Surgical resection represents the mainstay of therapy.
The aim of this brief comment is to highlight the role of chemotherapy in a preoperative and postoperative setting. The key is to identify chemosensitive subtypes of mediastinal sarcomas (i.e. synovial sarcomas) and there is evidence of satisfactory results in the literature [2,3].
Conflict of interest: none declared.
References
- 1.Luo D, Huang M, Xiong B, Li T, Xie K, Chen R, Che G, et al. Primary mediastinal sarcoma: surgical outcomes of 21 cases. Interact CardioVasc Thorac Surg 2013;17:982–7 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 2.Balieiro MA, Lopes AJ, Costa BP, Veras GP, Perelson PS, Acatauassu Nunes R, et al. The surprising outcome of a giant primary mediastinal synovial sarcoma treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. J Thorac Dis 2013;5:94–6 [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 3.Barbetakis N, Asteriou C, Papadopoulou FI, Stergiou E. Sarcomas of the great vessels. Is there a role for chemotherapy? Interact CardioVasc Thorac Surg 2010;10:463–4 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
