Soft tissue sarcomas in the precision medicine era: new advances in clinical practice and future perspectives

Abstract

Soft tissue sarcomas (STSs) represent a rare and heterogeneous group of solid tumours derived from mesenchymal progenitors and account for 1% of all adult malignancies. Although in the last decade anthracycline-based chemotherapy single agent or in combinations has been able to improve clinical benefits, prognosis is still poor and STSs represent an important unmet medical need. Continuous advances in cancer genetics and genomics have contributed to change management paradigms of STSs as it occurred for other solid tumours. Several treatments have been recently developed with the specific aim of targeting different cell pathways and immune-checkpoints that have been recognized to drive tumour progression. The following attempts to provide a review of literature focusing on the available data concerning novel treatments and future prospective for the management of metastatic STSs.