RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Hyperthermia therapy kills tumor cells by heating them to several degrees above body temperature. It is not known whether receiving chemotherapy plus hyperthermia is more effective than receiving chemotherapy alone in treating patients with soft tissue sarcoma. PURPOSE: This randomized phase III trial is studying combination chemotherapy alone to see how well it works compared to combination chemotherapy and hyperthermia therapy in treating patients with soft tissue sarcoma.
OBJECTIVES: * Determine local progression-free survival of patients with high-risk soft tissue sarcoma treated with neoadjuvant etoposide, ifosfamide, and doxorubicin with or without regional hyperthermia. * Determine the tumor response rate, local disease control rate, and overall survival in patients treated with this regimen. OUTLINE: This is a randomized study. Patients are stratified according to high-risk category (S1 vs S2 vs S3) and disease site (extremity vs nonextremity). Patients are randomized to one of two treatment arms. * Arm I: Patients receive etoposide IV over 30 minutes on days 1 and 4, ifosfamide IV over 60 minutes on days 1-4, and doxorubicin IV over 30 minutes on day 1. Treatment continues every 21 days for a total of 4 courses. Patients also undergo regional hyperthermia. * Arm II: Patients receive chemotherapy alone as in arm I. Patients in both arms undergo definitive surgery 4-6 weeks after chemotherapy. Patients also undergo radiotherapy beginning 4-6 weeks after surgery. After completion of surgery and radiotherapy, patients with non-resectable tumors showing no disease progression receive an additional 4 courses of chemotherapy with or without regional hyperthermia according to above treatment schedule. Patients are followed every 3 months for 1 year, every 4 months for 2 years, and then every 6 months thereafter. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 340 patients (170 patients per arm) will be accrued for this study within 3.5 years.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Enrollment
340
Robert Roessle Comprehensive Cancer Center at University of Berlin - Charite Campus Buch
Berlin, Germany
Universitaetsklinikum Essen
Essen, Germany
Universitaetsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf
Hamburg, Germany
Klinikum der Universitaet Muenchen - Grosshadern Campus
Munich, Germany
Local progression-free survival
Response as assessed by WHO criteria
Overall survival
Relapse-free survival
Acute and late complications as assessed by CTC v 1.0
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