Epidemiology of Soft Tissue Sarcomas in Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences of Yazd during 1994-2005

Introduction & Soft tissue sarcomas constitute 1% of all cancers. But they have high overall mortality. More than 50% of such patients in America die from soft tissue sarcoma. Pathogenesis of the soft tissue sarcomas like other neoplasms is unknown. Environmental and genetic factors are effective in this incidence. The aim of this study is an epidemiologic evaluation of soft tissue sarcoma in Yazd. In this descriptive and retrospective study the case of soft tissue sarcomas in 93 patients, who had referred to the hospitals of Shahid Sadoughi University of Yazd, Iran, from 1994-2005, is studied. Questionnaires containing sex, age, job, residency, type of sarcoma, anatomical site and recurrence, were filled out and the data was analyzed by SPSS 13. Of these 93 patients 54 (58.1%) were male and 39 (41.9%) were female. The age range was 1 to 89 years old and median age was 42.99 ± 22 year old. The most frequent sarcomas were fibrohistiocytic sarcoma (20.4%), synovial sarcoma (15%), rhabdomiosarcoma (10.8%) and liposarcoma (9.7%). The most frequent sarcoma in males was fibrohistiocytic and in female was synovial sarcoma (25.6%). Limbs are the most common locations for sarcoma (33.3%). We conclude that frequency distribution of soft tissue sarcoma in Yazd is similar to that of Western countries. More studies are necessary to evaluate the role of environmental carcinogens, as the cause of the sarcomas.