Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Does complete tumor removal lower soft tissue sarcoma return risk
By Milovancev, Milan et al.·Published in Veterinary and comparative oncology·2019·Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Influence of surgical margin completeness on risk of local tumour recurrence in canine cutaneous and subcutaneous soft tissue sarcoma: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A review of studies on dogs with soft tissue sarcomas found that those who had their tumors completely removed with clear surgical margins had a much lower chance of the tumor coming back compared to those with incomplete removals. Specifically, only about 10% of dogs with completely excised tumors experienced a recurrence, while about 33% of those with incomplete excisions did. This suggests that ensuring the surgical margins are free of cancer cells is crucial for reducing the risk of local tumor recurrence in dogs.
People also search for: dog soft tissue sarcoma surgery · canine tumor recurrence rates · how to prevent dog cancer return
Abstract
The present peer-reviewed veterinary literature contains conflicting information regarding the impact of surgical margin completeness on risk of local tumour recurrence in canine soft tissue sarcoma (STS). This systematic review and meta-analysis was designed to answer the clinical question: "Does obtaining microscopically tumour-free surgical margins reduce risk for local tumour recurrence in canine cutaneous and subcutaneous STS?" A total of 486 citations were screened, 66 of which underwent full-text evaluation, with 10 studies representing 278 STS excisions ultimately included. Cumulatively, 16/164 (9.8%) of completely excised and 38/114 (33.3%) of incompletely excised STS recurred. Overall relative risk of 0.396 (95% confidence interval = 0.248-0.632) was calculated for local recurrence in STS excised with complete margins as compared to STS excised with incomplete margins. Risk of bias was judged to be low for all studies in terms of selection bias and detection bias but high for all studies in terms of performance bias and exclusion bias. The results of the present meta-analysis, coupled with the results of individual previous studies, strongly suggest that microscopically complete surgical margins confer a significantly reduced risk for local tumour recurrence in canine STS. Future studies ideally should adhere to standardized conducting and reporting guidelines to reduce systematic bias.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30953384/